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Jane Duong Photography
A Loving City: Queerberra Revisited
In 2017, as Australia subjected queer relationships to a national postal survey, Jane Duong and Victoria Firth-Smith invited LGBTQIA+ people to be witnessed as precious and powerful.
Each person came as they are, and chose a place of significance to them. Seen together, they reveal a city understood not through its monuments but through the lived geographies of those who move within it. These portraits chart a map of queer belonging, showing how affirmation is found and made.
Each image is a threshold between private and public, between tenderness and risk. During the postal survey, the result was unknown, but one truth held: we matter. The QUEERBERRA book launched at the East Hotel in Kingston the day after Canberra recorded the nation’s strongest ‘Yes’ vote, marking a moment of relief, recognition, and renewed resolve.
Since then, Canberra has continued to be shaped by queer presence, resilience, and care. This work acknowledges losses and honours what has been built. Every gesture of love leaves its trace on a place; each act of showing up changes the city that receives it.
QUEERBERRA brings together 100 portraits of allies, asexual, bisexual, cisgender, drag kings and queens, fluid, gay, gender non-conforming, intersex, lesbian, monogamous, pansexual, polyamorous, transgender, queer, questioning, and rainbow people. Queer life unfolds beyond parades. These images honour the everyday places where we feel safe, proud, and most ourselves.
Jane Duong, photographer, and Victoria Firth-Smith, producer, of Queerberra (2017) and co-curators of A Loving City: Queerberra Revisited.
Visit Canberra Museum and Gallery (6 Dec - 5 April 2026)
