… is coming to an end for us. It began with a building site and ended with drastic cuts to our annual subsidy. Between these two stressful/burdensome poles, however, there were many friendly events that we would like to remember.

The Qwien library and offices had already moved to the new premises in Ramperstorffergasse in the summer of 2024, but the ground floor with the event room and exhibition hall and the archive room on the first floor were still under construction at the turn of the year. Fire doors, floors, archive shelves, hundreds of meters of cables and the expansion of the computer network, lighting and sound system, the green oasis in front of the building and the reception furniture inside – hundreds of details still needed to be completed before we could think about opening.

We also developed and designed the first two exhibitions. Our historical opening exhibition “Making History. A queer millennium in 27 incredible objects” and Sabine Schwaighofer’s “Homo Diaries. Self-portrait & other stories”. And once again we designed, planned, built and tinkered. Our in-house architects from koerdtutech, Irina Koerdt, Sanja Utech and Luciano Parodi, have developed a sustainable exhibition architecture, a modular system of wooden boxes that we can reuse for other exhibitions. This saves costs and resources.

A number of artists, designers and restorers have designed and produced the “historical” objects for our exhibition with a great deal of love and expertise, and Marc Damm and Gernot Preslmayer from duo have designed our new look. Bold colors and a font designed for us give us an unmistakable outfit.

And then we had to decide on an opening date: It had to be June 11. The opening was marred by the school bombing in Graz the day before, and Qwien did not want to hold a big ceremony during the national mourning period. The official opening ceremony therefore only took place on October 2.

In all the hustle and bustle, the library remained a haven of peace, we informed students, supervised interns and also found time for academic work. We wrote a major essay on the fate of men convicted of homosexuality in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Vienna. You can download the article here: https://comments.mauthausen-memorial.org/index.php/comments/issue/view/3

Our event program began right after the opening and really picked up speed in autumn: readings, lectures, talk formats, but also an afternoon of queer gaming, a lecture performance about Krampus and the recording of a live podcast with Ryta Tale took place. The spectrum was broad: trans* history, homosexuality in the k.u.k. The event attracted an interested audience: trans* history, homosexuality in the Austro-Hungarian army, Austrian literature, the fates of homosexual men during the Nazi era and of Martha Geiringer, a lesbian biologist who was persecuted and murdered during the Nazi era, talks on feminism and the dangers for the community from the right.

Speaking of the right: on 25 July, the Identitarians met for their annual meeting with German right-wingers right in our neighborhood and we became a potential target. A wave of solidarity followed in the district. A street party right in front of the Identitarians’ clubhouse spoiled their celebration.

In October, as part of Foto Wien 2025, Mario Kiesenhofer presented his exhibition AURA, a wonderful photo project for which the photographer researched our archive and put individual objects from our collection in a special light. We also used items from our collection for the third presentation on “40 years of LMC”, in which we told the story of the Viennese motorcycle and fetish club.

Shortly before the turn of the year, we were confronted with the City of Vienna’s savings plans. Unexpectedly high cuts are now forcing us to reduce our opening hours and program for the coming year. From 2.1.2026, the exhibitions will only be open Thu 13.00-20.00, Fri-Sun 13.00-18.00, the library will remain largely unchanged Tue-Fri 10.00-18.00.

Nevertheless, we are looking forward to the new year and new projects. A little teaser: our big song contest exhibition “United by Queerness” opens on February 18, 2026. And also already fixed: On 10.1. SAMSTAGS UM 4 will take place with a reading by Gunny Catell about the Radical Faeries, and on 21.2. the Irish author Seán Hewitt will read from his poetic coming out novel “Öffnet sich der Himmel”, also as part of SAMSTAGS UM 4.

We wish all friends of Qwien happy holidays and a good start to the new year

The Qwien team

Photo: Gregor Hofbauer