Documenting queer(ed) punk histories: Instagram, archives and ephemerality

Abstract

Queer(ed) bodies in punk subculture problematize deeply embedded heterosexual, cismale occupation of space and time. Traditional modes of media and documentation aid in establishing normative perspectives of who participates in punk, and how. Rather than reproducing dominant media expectations, queer people express and explore their self(s) through mediating fleeting-yet-concrete utopias that often leave only ephemeral evidence, but are picked up from the margins of scenes and media by others who know where to find them. This article examines tattooing and its intersection with Instagram digitization as forms of memorialising identity, not necessarily through the artwork of the tattoo, but r..