{"id":1936869,"date":"2026-05-15T10:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936869"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:53:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:53:00","slug":"sex-clubs-dissent-this-photo-book-presents-a-history-of-queer-nightlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936869","title":{"rendered":"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: This photo book presents a history of queer nightlife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-0-1510-1007\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445107.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article standard \">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/art-photography\/article\/70257\/1\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife-mack-photo-book-amelia-abraham\" data-article-id=\"70257\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-landscape-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.52\" data-template=\"Standard Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1038\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445107.jpg\" width=\"1575\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 Bernice Mulenga. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-05-15T10:53:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"15 May 2026\"><span class=\"month\">May<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"15\">15,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - art-photography\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"standard-tag-container\"><a class=\"standard-category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a> \/<br \/>\n<a class=\"standard-series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>Sex, Clubs, Dissent: This photo book presents a history of <span class=\"nowrap\">queer nightlife<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>We speak to author Amelia Abraham about her new book, which celebrates queer nightlife, from the 1960s to the present-day, as a site of resistance <span class=\"nowrap\">and self-expression<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-05-15T10:53:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"15 May 2026\"><span class=\"month\">May<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"15\">15,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-05-15T10:53:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"15 May 2026\"><span class=\"month\">May<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"15\">15,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/RobCorsini\"><br \/>\nRob Corsini<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"dazed-gallery has-6-images \">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<header>\n<div class=\"info\"><span class=\"heading\">Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising <span class=\"nowrap\">Queer Nightlife<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumbs\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/0\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"742\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1113-742\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" width=\"1113\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/1\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1007\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1510-1007\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445107.jpg\" width=\"1510\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/2\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"991\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-3-1487-991\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" width=\"1487\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/3\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1029\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1543-1029\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" width=\"1543\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/4\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1050\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1575-1050\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445110.jpg\" width=\"1575\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/5\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-3000-2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445111.jpg\" width=\"3000\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-footer\">Gallery \/ 6 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Photography can act like a portal \u2013 transporting you to a space, showing you new possibilities, and preserving histories that would otherwise be lost. But it can also intrude \u2013 shining a light on moments that you would rather keep private, leaving people exposed or surveilled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For many queer people, this tension is perfectly captured in the photography of nightlife. Under the cover of night, queer people have created spaces in which they are the majority in a world which seeks to marginalise them, building places where they can express themselves at their most free. People have tried to capture these moments \u2013 posed in studios or with pictures snapped on iPhone and digicams \u2013 but what changes when a camera enters the room?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In their new book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mackbooks.co.uk\/products\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><em><span>Sex Clubs Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, Amelia Abraham examines the act of photographing queer nightlife, exploring how photos have helped to preserve and celebrate queer practices, even though it has at times endangered those spaces. Featuring a mixture of photography shot by artists and found in archives, taken across the world from the 1960s to the present day, Abraham\u2019s book curates a visual record of queer nightlife\u2019s possibilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In a conversation with Dazed, Abraham spoke about nightlife as a space of resistance, the violence that\u2019s inextricably tied to photography\u2019s history, and how many of our queer nightlife traditions are inherited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"5b0aeae2-ad1e-45d7-aa51-b44a00f2a753\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1575\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.53\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1029\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" width=\"1575\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Sunil Gupta, Heaven, London Gay <span class=\"nowrap\">Switchboard, 1980.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 2025 Sunil Gupta. All rights reserved, DACS. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>To start at the beginning, what drew you to the topic of queer nightlife? Why did you want to make this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think it comes from a deep place of personal love. Queer nightlife has had such an impact on me \u2013 finding spaces where I could meet my people and where I was exposed to other ways of doing things. A more academic interest grew over time, as I started to read about and witness shifts in social geographies around queer nightlife in London.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I wanted to make the book because I really love queer photography and I thought it was really strange that there wasn\u2019t a survey book looking at queer nightlife photography. There are a lot of artists who have monographs and we\u2019re starting to see more books looking at the history of queer photography, but there\u2019s nothing that looks at the relationship between nightlife, movement building, and photography.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When I was reading Mackenzie Wark\u2019s epigraph, one of the things that stood out to me was her saying, \u2018Why make pictures of nightlife at all? Why write about it?\u2019 Why do you think your interest went from enjoying those spaces to wanting to make a photo book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think that celebrations and love letters in themselves are really important, especially in social histories and social documentation. I don\u2019t have the best memory, so I\u2019m really pleased when I see a photograph or see someone writing about a place that I enjoyed, because that brings all of that back in technicolour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When you began to approach the book, how were you thinking about the word \u2018nightlife\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I\u2019m sure everyone has different associations with the term nightlife. To me, nightlife conjures <\/span><em><span>Time Out<\/span><\/em><span> magazine, the clubs on high streets I used to go to when I was 16. It conjures a lot of the conversations that I think that we\u2019ve been having within the queer nightlife space over the last ten years, which have been very bound up with closures, which is important for good reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With this book, I wanted to slightly step away from that and open our idea of what nightlife can mean. Is it domestic spaces? The party that\u2019s in the kitchen or the bedroom? Is it an activist march where people come together? Is it a sex club that you visit during the day? I wanted to do something to show all the different things it can be.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"8233d05b-f073-4b33-ac6b-b44a00f2a256\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1119\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.51\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"742\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" width=\"1119\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Vanessa Sander Archive, Vanessa Sander and her boyfriend, Salta, <span class=\"nowrap\">Argentina, 1988.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>My guess is that when a lot of people come to the book, they\u2019ll assume that it\u2019s a pure-play celebration of the act of photographing nightlife, but the reality is more complex. Let&#8217;s start with the positives: what are they?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>On a practical level, some of the photographers in the book were shooting for <\/span><em><span>On Our Backs<\/span><\/em><span> magazine, which was a radical dyke magazine based in San Francisco. Those magazines were sent around the country and literally attracted people to go to these cities and find their people. So, I think many of the photos in the book demonstrate possibility. Visual imagery can be really powerful in terms of reflecting back who you are, or who you might be able to become, or who you could be in communion with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Some of the images are activist images; they\u2019re documentations of protests. Some of the images were created out of pleasure, like Dean Sameshima\u2019s series, which began as photos he took on his iPhone in porn cinemas so he could get off to them later. And then documentation too, which is a kind of political imperative. In the case of El Archivo De La Memoria Trans Argentina and M\u00e9xico, these are people\u2019s personal photos that, within the context of those archives, have been sort of re-politicised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>To offer a counterpoint to that question, where do the difficulties arise?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>There are so many and I think this is an especially relevant question now because we\u2019re seeing this shift back to no photography rules in clubs. People can feel freer to express themselves when they\u2019re not having their photo taken, especially if it\u2019s someone\u2019s first time coming to a queer club or expressing their gender authentically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I think that for queer people, the history of photography is bound up in state surveillance. There is a version of photography\u2019s history that&#8217;s quite violent and that manifests in criminalisation, mugshots, or outings, even.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And then photography can present jeopardy to a queer space too; it can attract the wrong people. There\u2019s such a fetishisation of queer nightlife. We know how to have fun! People see that through photography, and then they want to come and it changes the nature of the thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>There are images in the book that date back to the 1960s. How do you think the images show how queer nightlife has evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think something that struck me is actually that a lot of things have been happening for a long time that we don\u2019t expect. I came across these photos of a lesbian strip club in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1978. Obviously, there are dyke strip nights that exist, but I\u2019m like, \u2018Where\u2019s my local lesbian strip club?\u2019 There\u2019s a huge precedence for drag king culture that perhaps isn\u2019t always acknowledged. I found so much amazing drag king imagery \u2013\u00a0 Del LaGrace Volcano\u2019s photos, Efrain Gonzalez\u2019s photos. I think a lot of our ideas are actually inherited and it\u2019s beautiful to honour that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"31970f71-9835-4acf-bf62-b44a00f2a5a4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1489\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.5\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"995\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" width=\"1489\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Jean-Marc Armani, Closing night of Gay Pride at the \u2018Mutualit\u00e9\u2019, Paris, 18 <span class=\"nowrap\">June 1994.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 Jean-Marc Armani. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a lot of joy to be found within the photos, even though many of the people captured in the photos are vulnerable. How do you think nightlife operates as a space of resistance?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>Some of the images in the book might seem utopic but when you research that photographer, you find the story behind the image is actually one of people living in complete precarity. They\u2019re finding a slice of intimacy within a backdrop of extraordinary violence. That, in itself, is transgressive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There\u2019s a perfect example in a photo taken by Susan Kravitz of the Invasion of the Pines event in Fire Island in 1989. It\u2019s a beautiful photo of people in drag. They\u2019re wearing pearls, but if you look more closely, you can see the Kaposi sarcoma [a complication of advanced HIV] on one of their cheeks. I don\u2019t know how long this person in this photo lived, but they\u2019re defiantly out having a good time anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have a favourite photo in the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I love basically every photo, which is why they\u2019re in the book and I\u2019ll probably answer this question differently every time to be diplomatic. But I really love Jean-Marc Armani\u2019s ACT UP Paris photos. There are absolutely heartbreaking photos of huge die-ins alongside intimate and beautiful domestic pictures. There\u2019s a photo of two people on the dance floor, holding onto each other for dear life. Or another of a person with their arms in the air and everyone\u2019s topless, and the way the spotlights fall on them gives a sense of ascendancy, which I find so poignant, given that so many of these people wouldn\u2019t survive.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think you&#8217;ve learned that surprised you the most from working on the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>You could just work on this forever! It would have been impossible to do a photographic history, because there&#8217;s just too much out there. There are so many photographers, so many lost clubs, so many hidden archives, and so many brilliant artists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you were going to give advice to people in a club with their phone or their camera, what would you say to them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>It\u2019s important to ask, does everything need to be a photo? And it\u2019s important to think about consent. A lot of the photographers that I\u2019ve worked with, especially the younger ones, seem to be thinking about the ethics of what gets photographed and what doesn\u2019t.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>And there\u2019s also a lot of generic queer nightlife photography out there! Look for things that really stand out. Capture worlds and histories within your images.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham is published by MACK and available <a href=\"https:\/\/mackbooks.co.uk\/products\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! 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Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"dazed-gallery has-6-images \">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<header>\n<div class=\"info\"><span class=\"heading\">Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising <span class=\"nowrap\">Queer Nightlife<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumbs\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/0\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"742\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1113-742\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" width=\"1113\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/1\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1007\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1510-1007\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445107.jpg\" width=\"1510\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/2\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"991\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-3-1487-991\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" width=\"1487\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/3\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1029\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1543-1029\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" width=\"1543\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/4\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1050\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1575-1050\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445110.jpg\" width=\"1575\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/37032\/5\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"2000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-3000-2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445111.jpg\" width=\"3000\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-footer\">Gallery \/ 6 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Photography can act like a portal \u2013 transporting you to a space, showing you new possibilities, and preserving histories that would otherwise be lost. But it can also intrude \u2013 shining a light on moments that you would rather keep private, leaving people exposed or surveilled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For many queer people, this tension is perfectly captured in the photography of nightlife. Under the cover of night, queer people have created spaces in which they are the majority in a world which seeks to marginalise them, building places where they can express themselves at their most free. People have tried to capture these moments \u2013 posed in studios or with pictures snapped on iPhone and digicams \u2013 but what changes when a camera enters the room?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In their new book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mackbooks.co.uk\/products\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\"><em><span>Sex Clubs Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, Amelia Abraham examines the act of photographing queer nightlife, exploring how photos have helped to preserve and celebrate queer practices, even though it has at times endangered those spaces. Featuring a mixture of photography shot by artists and found in archives, taken across the world from the 1960s to the present day, Abraham\u2019s book curates a visual record of queer nightlife\u2019s possibilities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In a conversation with Dazed, Abraham spoke about nightlife as a space of resistance, the violence that\u2019s inextricably tied to photography\u2019s history, and how many of our queer nightlife traditions are inherited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"5b0aeae2-ad1e-45d7-aa51-b44a00f2a753\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1575\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.53\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"1029\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445109.jpg\" width=\"1575\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Sunil Gupta, Heaven, London Gay <span class=\"nowrap\">Switchboard, 1980.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 2025 Sunil Gupta. All rights reserved, DACS. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>To start at the beginning, what drew you to the topic of queer nightlife? Why did you want to make this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think it comes from a deep place of personal love. Queer nightlife has had such an impact on me \u2013 finding spaces where I could meet my people and where I was exposed to other ways of doing things. A more academic interest grew over time, as I started to read about and witness shifts in social geographies around queer nightlife in London.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I wanted to make the book because I really love queer photography and I thought it was really strange that there wasn\u2019t a survey book looking at queer nightlife photography. There are a lot of artists who have monographs and we\u2019re starting to see more books looking at the history of queer photography, but there\u2019s nothing that looks at the relationship between nightlife, movement building, and photography.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When I was reading Mackenzie Wark\u2019s epigraph, one of the things that stood out to me was her saying, \u2018Why make pictures of nightlife at all? Why write about it?\u2019 Why do you think your interest went from enjoying those spaces to wanting to make a photo book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think that celebrations and love letters in themselves are really important, especially in social histories and social documentation. I don\u2019t have the best memory, so I\u2019m really pleased when I see a photograph or see someone writing about a place that I enjoyed, because that brings all of that back in technicolour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>When you began to approach the book, how were you thinking about the word \u2018nightlife\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I\u2019m sure everyone has different associations with the term nightlife. To me, nightlife conjures <\/span><em><span>Time Out<\/span><\/em><span> magazine, the clubs on high streets I used to go to when I was 16. It conjures a lot of the conversations that I think that we\u2019ve been having within the queer nightlife space over the last ten years, which have been very bound up with closures, which is important for good reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With this book, I wanted to slightly step away from that and open our idea of what nightlife can mean. Is it domestic spaces? The party that\u2019s in the kitchen or the bedroom? Is it an activist march where people come together? Is it a sex club that you visit during the day? I wanted to do something to show all the different things it can be.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"8233d05b-f073-4b33-ac6b-b44a00f2a256\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1119\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.51\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"742\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445106.jpg\" width=\"1119\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Vanessa Sander Archive, Vanessa Sander and her boyfriend, Salta, <span class=\"nowrap\">Argentina, 1988.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>My guess is that when a lot of people come to the book, they\u2019ll assume that it\u2019s a pure-play celebration of the act of photographing nightlife, but the reality is more complex. Let&#8217;s start with the positives: what are they?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>On a practical level, some of the photographers in the book were shooting for <\/span><em><span>On Our Backs<\/span><\/em><span> magazine, which was a radical dyke magazine based in San Francisco. Those magazines were sent around the country and literally attracted people to go to these cities and find their people. So, I think many of the photos in the book demonstrate possibility. Visual imagery can be really powerful in terms of reflecting back who you are, or who you might be able to become, or who you could be in communion with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Some of the images are activist images; they\u2019re documentations of protests. Some of the images were created out of pleasure, like Dean Sameshima\u2019s series, which began as photos he took on his iPhone in porn cinemas so he could get off to them later. And then documentation too, which is a kind of political imperative. In the case of El Archivo De La Memoria Trans Argentina and M\u00e9xico, these are people\u2019s personal photos that, within the context of those archives, have been sort of re-politicised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>To offer a counterpoint to that question, where do the difficulties arise?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>There are so many and I think this is an especially relevant question now because we\u2019re seeing this shift back to no photography rules in clubs. People can feel freer to express themselves when they\u2019re not having their photo taken, especially if it\u2019s someone\u2019s first time coming to a queer club or expressing their gender authentically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I think that for queer people, the history of photography is bound up in state surveillance. There is a version of photography\u2019s history that&#8217;s quite violent and that manifests in criminalisation, mugshots, or outings, even.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And then photography can present jeopardy to a queer space too; it can attract the wrong people. There\u2019s such a fetishisation of queer nightlife. We know how to have fun! People see that through photography, and then they want to come and it changes the nature of the thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>There are images in the book that date back to the 1960s. How do you think the images show how queer nightlife has evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I think something that struck me is actually that a lot of things have been happening for a long time that we don\u2019t expect. I came across these photos of a lesbian strip club in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1978. Obviously, there are dyke strip nights that exist, but I\u2019m like, \u2018Where\u2019s my local lesbian strip club?\u2019 There\u2019s a huge precedence for drag king culture that perhaps isn\u2019t always acknowledged. I found so much amazing drag king imagery \u2013\u00a0 Del LaGrace Volcano\u2019s photos, Efrain Gonzalez\u2019s photos. I think a lot of our ideas are actually inherited and it\u2019s beautiful to honour that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"31970f71-9835-4acf-bf62-b44a00f2a5a4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1489\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.5\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife\" class=\"img\" height=\"995\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445108.jpg\" width=\"1489\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Jean-Marc Armani, Closing night of Gay Pride at the \u2018Mutualit\u00e9\u2019, Paris, 18 <span class=\"nowrap\">June 1994.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 Jean-Marc Armani. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist <span class=\"nowrap\">and MACK.<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a lot of joy to be found within the photos, even though many of the people captured in the photos are vulnerable. How do you think nightlife operates as a space of resistance?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>Some of the images in the book might seem utopic but when you research that photographer, you find the story behind the image is actually one of people living in complete precarity. They\u2019re finding a slice of intimacy within a backdrop of extraordinary violence. That, in itself, is transgressive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There\u2019s a perfect example in a photo taken by Susan Kravitz of the Invasion of the Pines event in Fire Island in 1989. It\u2019s a beautiful photo of people in drag. They\u2019re wearing pearls, but if you look more closely, you can see the Kaposi sarcoma [a complication of advanced HIV] on one of their cheeks. I don\u2019t know how long this person in this photo lived, but they\u2019re defiantly out having a good time anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have a favourite photo in the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>I love basically every photo, which is why they\u2019re in the book and I\u2019ll probably answer this question differently every time to be diplomatic. But I really love Jean-Marc Armani\u2019s ACT UP Paris photos. There are absolutely heartbreaking photos of huge die-ins alongside intimate and beautiful domestic pictures. There\u2019s a photo of two people on the dance floor, holding onto each other for dear life. Or another of a person with their arms in the air and everyone\u2019s topless, and the way the spotlights fall on them gives a sense of ascendancy, which I find so poignant, given that so many of these people wouldn\u2019t survive.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think you&#8217;ve learned that surprised you the most from working on the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>You could just work on this forever! It would have been impossible to do a photographic history, because there&#8217;s just too much out there. There are so many photographers, so many lost clubs, so many hidden archives, and so many brilliant artists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you were going to give advice to people in a club with their phone or their camera, what would you say to them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Abraham: <\/strong><span>It\u2019s important to ask, does everything need to be a photo? And it\u2019s important to think about consent. A lot of the photographers that I\u2019ve worked with, especially the younger ones, seem to be thinking about the ethics of what gets photographed and what doesn\u2019t.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>And there\u2019s also a lot of generic queer nightlife photography out there! Look for things that really stand out. Capture worlds and histories within your images.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham is published by MACK and available <a href=\"https:\/\/mackbooks.co.uk\/products\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/70257\/1\/sex-clubs-dissent-visualising-queer-nightlife-mack-photo-book-amelia-abraham&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-0-1510-1007\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/5\/1445107.jpg&#8221;] \u00a9 Bernice Mulenga. From Sex, Clubs, Dissent: Visualising Queer Nightlife by Amelia Abraham (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist and MACK. May\u00a0 15,\u00a0 2026 Art &amp; Photography \/ Q+A Art &amp; Photography \/ Q+A Sex, Clubs, Dissent: This photo book presents a history of queer nightlife We speak to author Amelia Abraham [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1936869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1936869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1936869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1936869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1936869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}