On Wednesday, October 9, join us in welcoming art historian and curator Josh Porter, Assistant Executive Director for the Faulkner Morgan Archive (FMA). 

Porter will highlight the FMA’s diligent work preserving the documents, artifacts, and oral histories that tell the story of Kentucky’s LGBTQ* community, along with the many resources and collections at UK Libraries that support research in the field of gender and sexuality studies.

Porter’s presentation begins at 6pm in the Alumni Gallery in William T. Young Library. Light refreshments and a meet and greet will follow the lecture, and select items from the Libraries’ collections will be available to view until 8pm.

Born in Eastern Kentucky, Josh Porter brings a unique perspective to the archive by viewing Kentucky’s LGBTQ* history through the lens of art, particularly photography. His writing, design, and photography has appeared in Oxford American, Brooklyn Rail, Art In America, Queer Kentucky, UnderMain, and other publications. He received his MFA in Curatorial Studies from UK in 2023. You can find his work here.

The Faulkner Morgan Archive currently houses 15,000 items and more than 250 hours of recorded interviews. FMA collections span 200 years of history, representing individuals, events, and institutions across Kentucky’s diverse LGBTQ* spectrum and creating a rich resource for activists, scholars, artists, and museums.