A museum exhibit on LGBTQ video games, co-curated by a Temple prof, is now live in Berlin

With help from a Temple University professor, a first-ever museum exhibit on LGBTQ video games opened this week in the Schwules Museum in Berlin.

Adrienne Shaw, a researcher whose work has focused on LGBTQ representation in video games, served as guest curator for the exhibit, which covers 30 years of LGBTQ representation in hundreds of games.

“The museum is the world’s oldest and largest LGBTQ museum,” Shaw told Technical.ly. “It’s important for people interested in queer history to know that this is also part of LGBTQ history.”

The exhibit spans six separate sections, which cover LGBTQ representations in mainstream gaming history, independent gaming, the indie queer movement, diverse figures of the gaming industry and broader LGBTQ communities that revolve around gaming.

“I didn’t realize this until we were writing the text for the exhibit, but this represents my entire academic career,” said Shaw, who created the first online LGBTQ gaming history repository. “I’ve always researched stuff that sounded bland to non-academic types, but this makes my work feel like it matters beyond metrics of prestige.”

While the exhibit was funded by a grant from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, curators launched a $29,000 Kickstarter campaign to create a digital and print catalog of the exhibition to reach those that can’t make the skip across the pond.

Inside the Rainbow Arcade, at Berlin’s Schwules Museum.