After a sort of pre-premiere and presentation held as part of the annual conference of the International Committee of Ethnographic Museums at ICOM, today, precisely at noon, the Coming Out Museum was unveiled at the Cvajner Gallery, a joint project of the Proces association and the Ethnographic Museum of Istria. The museum’s website and its virtual collection were presented by the project’s authors Mario Buletić, museum advisor from the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, and Jan Franjul from the Proces association.

“The collaboration between the museum and Proces started almost a year and a half ago when the ‘Tolerance’ poster exhibition was realized in Pazin. Alongside the exhibition, we organized a panel discussion on the importance of establishing cooperation between institutions, museums, and civil society organizations. One of the participants was Jan. After the panel, we decided to collaborate and embarked on designing a joint project,” said Mario Buletić.

The first step in the collaboration was through the new museum program Contact Zone, aimed at contributing to policies and initiatives addressing social inclusion, issues of inequality, and social and cultural equality through socially engaged museum practice.

“In the first phase of the project, we aimed to build trust, both human and professional foundations, for designing the conceptual and operational framework of the project. The main goal at that time was to realize the exhibition based on research, documentation, and collection of materials. The research was conducted among community members, and such a collaborative approach is a fundamental feature of all project phases,” Mario Buletić added.

Jan Franjul from the Proces association emphasized the importance of cooperation between civil society organizations and institutions, adding that such programs enable both sides to further educate themselves and strengthen their capacities.

“From the very beginning of the project, we wanted to materialize the lives and identities of LGBTQ+ community members. Through initial research and discussions about the coming-out processes, we recognized the universality in the stories. Then we decided to materialize these stories with items whose biographies trigger memories of significant and pivotal moments of coming out and acceptance,” said Jan Franjul.

As the project progressed from organizing the exhibition, the idea of ​​creating a virtual platform emerged to allow a wider range of people to independently engage and participate in the project.

“The Coming Out Museum as a virtual platform allows everyone to become part of this collaborative process, enrich our collection with their items and stories, become part of this collaborative process, part of the material LGBTQ+ heritage, and get to know other stories and lives,” Jan Franjul added.

The Coming Out Museum, currently located at the virtual location on the come.lgbt page, thus represents the first step in creating a traveling exhibition that would allow everyone to meet live with the stories and in a way realize that everyone actually goes through processes of self-discovery, self-acceptance, but also struggles with acceptance by the community and wider society. The first pop-up exhibition of the Coming Out Museum will be held in Pula in June 2024, as part of the Pride Month program.

The project authors highlighted the importance of targeting two specific groups. Members of the LGBTQ+ community as co-creators of the museum’s display, but also towards the broader public, for whom the collection of stories and items serves as an illustrative insight into the lifelong process of coming out, encouraging acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals from their own environment.

The presentation concluded with thanks to all who have donated their items and stories so far, collaborators, members of the Proces association, and web designers from Studio Netopir, as well as an invitation from the authors to the wider audience, members of the LGBTQ+ community, to visit the virtual museum on the website come.lgbt, and to engage and enrich the collection with their items and their biographies.