Victorian Pride Centre & Australian Queer Archives

Opened in July 2021 on Fitzroy Street in St Kilda, the Victorian Pride Centre is Australia's first purpose-built LGBTQIA+ community hub and among the largest in the world — some 9,000 square metres of striking curved architecture housing organisations, galleries, a theatrette and rooftop spaces. Its historical treasure is the Australian Queer Archives. Founded in 1978 and now holding over half a million items — the largest LGBTIQ+ collection in the country, heritage-listed by Victoria — AQuA documents everything from colonial-era prosecutions to Mardi Gras ephemera. The volunteer-run archive occupies a custom-built space in the centre, with a reading room open to researchers and the public by appointment. Visiting: the centre is free to enter (galleries and exhibitions during opening hours; archives by appointment via mail@queerarchives.org.au), a tram ride from the CBD in bayside St Kilda. Melbourne's other memorial note: the 1988 AIDS Memorial Garden at the former Fairfield Hospital is under restoration after years of neglect — the Pride Centre, which displays the heritage-listed Melbourne AIDS Memorial Quilts, is where that memory currently lives.