Women’s archives, libraries and documentation centres were founded in West Germany in the 1970s by feminist activists with the aim of documenting the history of autonomous women’s and lesbian movements and thus their own political work.

For over 45 years, LIESELLE (Queer*feminist Library and Archive at the Ruhr University Bochum) has been collecting materials from the autonomous women’s and lesbian movement. This volume presents a selection of the books, flyers, posters and documents, which are photographically staged by the artist Julia Lübbecke and reorganised by academics, students and contemporary witnesses. The documents, publications and objects on display provide an impressive overview of the development of feminist, queer and anti-racist struggles.

It was important to the editor, Kat Teichmann, to place a special focus on the „gaps“ in the archive and to present materials and authors that illustrate the significance of (post-)migrant perspectives and anti-racist struggles for the women’s movement. With contributions by Laura Méritt, Karin Aleksander and Fallon Tiffany Cabral, among others.

Kat Teichmann (editor, LIESELLE), Begüm Karagöz (author, LIESELLE) and Julia Lübbecke (artist) will jointly present the book Aktivist*innen im Archiv. From the beginnings of women’s studies to queer interventions.

Katja Teichman (ed.). Activists in the archive. From the beginnings of women’s studies to queer interventions. Orlanda publishing house, 2025.

Kat Teichmann studied Gender Studies, German Studies and Philosophy and has been involved in the queer*feminist archive LIESELLE at the Ruhr University Bochum since 2014. She has already carried out several projects there and in other movement archives as part of the Digital German Women’s Archive (DDF) and works on lesbian-feminist and queer cultures of remembrance as well as archival practices critical of domination, among other things.

Begüm Karagöz is studying Arabic/Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature at RUB. She has been working at LIESELLE since January 2021.

In her artistic work,Julia Lübbecke deals with the relationship between the political, tactile and emotional dimensions of knowledge. Based on this connection, she examines dominant structures of order, such as categorisations, and works on processes to make them fragile. With the help of her transdisciplinary practice, which includes sculpture, photography, video and performative elements, she creates expansive installations that embody her fantasies of fleeting forms of memory and knowledge.

An event organised by the Fritz Bauer Forum.