Tessa Boffin: Where We Touch the Archive
Invitation to contribute to THE DRAFT
Devonshire Collective, Photoworks, BACKLIT and Aspex Portsmouth announce Tessa Boffin: Where We Touch the Archive, an ambitious national touring exhibition responding to the work of artist and activist Tessa Boffin (1960–1993). The exhibition launches at Devonshire Collective on 17 July 2026 before travelling to Nottingham, Brighton and Portsmouth throughout 2026.
Tessa Boffin’s practice spanned photography, writing, performance and activism, consistently challenging dominant narratives around gender, sexuality and visibility. Her work remains urgently relevant to contemporary queer and feminist communities, and this project asks what it means to encounter an archive as a generative, collective space.
What is THE DRAFT?
THE DRAFT is a growing publication assembled over the course of the exhibition tour.
It brings together existing materials shared by artists, writers, researchers, activists, archives and the wider queer community. Each contribution becomes part of a collective document that expands as the exhibition travels, creating a record of conversations taking place across different places and communities.
Why are we doing this?
What does it mean to encounter an archive in the present? How can an archive be active rather than fixed? And how might it become a space for collective conversation rather than a historical record?
These questions sit at the heart of Tessa Boffin: Where We Touch the Archive. Rather than treating the archive as something complete or authoritative, the exhibition approaches it as a site that continues to generate new meanings, relationships and forms of collective care.
At the same time, we recognise that opportunities to contribute to collaborative queer artistic projects are often limited, leaving many voices, experiences and everyday acts of archiving unseen. We think archives are not only held by institutions, but also by individuals, communities and the traces we keep of our own lives.
THE DRAFT is an invitation to expand who contributes to the archive and whose stories are included within it. We want to create space for queer people to share existing fragments from their own practices and personal archives, recognising that these materials are already valuable forms of cultural memory.
Presented alongside the touring exhibition, THE DRAFT is a publication where Tessa Boffin’s work meets the queer thinking, making and archiving taking place today. As the exhibition travels, it will continue to grow through new contributions, revealing connections across generations, geographies, communities and practice.
What are we asking for?
We are inviting LGBTQIA+ artists, writers, researchers and activists to share something that already exists within their own practice or personal archive. This might be a photograph, contact sheet, piece of writing, letter, annotation, screenshot, text message, drawing, note or another form of ephemera that speaks to memory, care, identity, activism or queer life.
Each contribution should also include one question for future contributors, allowing THE DRAFT to become an ongoing conversation that accumulates throughout the tour. By its final venue, it will bring together multiple voices, experiences and ways of thinking about what archives can be, and who they are for.
We welcome contributions from queer people that ask questions as much as they offer answers, exploring how archives are accessed, shared, cared for and continually reimagined by queer, feminist and gender-non-conforming communities today.
Contributions may include:
- Photographs
- Contact sheets
- Writing
- Letters or correspondence
- Annotations or marginalia
- Screenshots
- Text messages
- Drawings
- Notes
- Other forms of ephemera
Submission guidelines
- Maximum size: A4
- Black and white or colour
- Image, text, or a combination of both
- Include one question for future contributors
- Optional caption or short description
- Contributions remain open throughout the exhibition tour
Please submit using the form in the button below as a high-resolution digital file (PDF, JPEG, PNG or TIFF).
Please email polly@devonshirecollective.co.uk if you are unable to use this form.
To be considered for inclusion from the beginning of the touring exhibition, submit by July 13th.
What selected contributors receive
- Inclusion in THE DRAFT, a developing publication made throughout the national tour of Tessa Boffin: Where We Touch the Archive.
- The opportunity to have your contribution presented alongside the exhibition as it travels to four UK venues.
- A named credit within THE DRAFT (unless you choose to remain anonymous).
- A personalised invitation to curator talks, symposium and meet ups during the exhibition tour.
Rights and Permissions
By submitting a contribution, you confirm that you are the creator of the work or have permission to share it.
You retain copyright of your contribution. By submitting, you grant Devonshire Collective, Photoworks, BACKLIT and Aspex Portsmouth a non-exclusive licence to reproduce your contribution as part of THE DRAFT throughout the exhibition tour and in associated printed and digital project materials. Contributors will be credited wherever reasonably possible.
