Close

SHELF/LIFE SHELF/LIFE

(queer family told through what we keep)

SHELF/LIFE is a photo and text-based archive that explores queer family through the everyday objects found in our kitchens. Through collected photographs and reflections, the archive highlights how memory, inheritance and identity take shape in everyday domestic spaces. These objects carry stories of survival, care, loss, and becoming—showing how queer people build and imagine family. SHELF/LIFE resists erasure by honoring the quiet, daily lives that shape collective memory, one object at a time.

All submissions will be included in an ongoing digital archive and select contributions will be featured in a printed zine, scheduled for release in early 2026.

This archival project (SHELF/LIFE) is open from May 2025 - October 2025.
Consent & Use: By submitting, you agree to have your contribution included in the digital archive.

contribute to SHELF/LIFE

Submissions look like photographs of kitchen objects that hold personal or familial significance, items tied to your experience of queer kindship -- throufg memory, absence, routine or ritual and written reflections (50-150 words) that offer insight into how this object connects to your sense of family.

What to Share

We welcome:

Photographs of kitchen objects that hold personal familial significanc
Items tied to your experience of queer kinship—through memory, absence, routine, or
Written reflections (50–1 words) t t offer insightnto how this object connects to your sense of family—what it carries, what it represents, or what it makes poss
Contributions that are unresolved, nonlinear, or in-process. We honor the complexit

call for submissions: shelf / lifecall for submissions: shelf / li

salt (archive)