Exhibition Opening Queer Immortality (01.10.)

How do we remember lives lived outside of traditional norms that barely reflect them? What does the loss of spaces mean for queer communities? What do vampires have to do with queer desire?

Queer Immortality—Death Must Be a Non-Binary Viennese Person explores queer forms of remembrance as well as perspectives on life, death, and transience. After death, queer identities are often erased, reinterpreted, or torn from their social context. Traditional rituals of dying and mourning often fail to do justice to queer realities of life and, in particular, exclude chosen families. The exhibition presents mourning as a collective experience and a distorted memory. It explores perspectives on queer funerals and burial sites that may seem disruptive and unfamiliar, but which, precisely because of this, do justice to queer realities of life.

Exhibition Opening Queer Immortality

1st of October from 6:00 pm

How do we remember lives lived outside of traditional norms that barely reflect them? What does the loss of spaces mean for queer communities? What do vampires have to do with queer desire?

Queer Immortality—Death Must Be a Non-Binary Viennese Person explores queer forms of remembrance as well as perspectives on life, death, and transience. After death, queer identities are often erased, reinterpreted, or torn from their social context. Traditional rituals of dying and mourning often fail to do justice to queer realities of life and, in particular, exclude chosen families. The exhibition presents mourning as a collective experience and a distorted memory. It explores perspectives on queer funerals and burial sites that may seem disruptive and unfamiliar, but which, precisely because of this, do justice to queer realities of life.

The provocative engagement with death and (im)mortality is also an essential part of queer cultural history. In literature and art, vampires have long symbolized forbidden desire, hidden subcultures, fluid gender identities, and a rejection of social norms. In video works, drag queens become undertakers, while a vampire attempts to replace Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s stolen head. A series of performative installations focuses on supporting actors who are the first to be doomed to death in horror films.

The exhibition Queer Immortality is open from 2 October 2026 to 24 January 2027, Thursday through Sunday from 2:00 to 6:00 pm. 

Admission is free. The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive programme of educational activities and events.

Curator: Barba Stöhr | Artists: Peter Kozek, LA GEORGETTA, Heti Prack, Siggi Sekira, Florian Aschka, Danielle Pamp, Julia Fuchs, Berivan Sayici, Luis Javier Murillo, Thomas Hörl, Thomas Schoiswohl with activists, HEATHERS

🖼️ Opening, exhibition, party

📅 When? 01.10. from 18:00

💬 Language: English and German

📍 Where? QUEER MUSEUM VIENNA | Baumgartner Höhe 1, 1140 Vienna

💶 Free admission, donations are welcome

This event is supported by: