Unwanted Artifacts

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Unwanted Artifacts (2026-) is an ongoing project that explores the presence, permanence, and visibility of queer sexuality in the Archive. The title refers to both the technical term used by photographers and editors to denote imperfections or distortions they typically do not want in their image, and the collection of erotic artifacts uncovered in Pompeii that were eventually stored in the “Secret Cabinet” at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. These two seemingly unrelated points of inspiration come together as I compare them to the ways in which institutional archives approach historical evidence of queer sexuality, often hiding, ignoring, or erasing it in their building of an archive. In this body of work, I employ the incidental archive of vintage gay pornography uploaded to the internet as a vehicle for metaphor, photographing films spanning from the 1970s to the 90s in such a way that the noise and distortion blurs bodies together and makes sexually explicit scenes difficult to read. As viewers attempt to “see” the image, they participate in a similar act to that of queer historians, archivists, and artists like myself. The act of looking becomes active – it becomes searching.

Jason Parent

Unwanted Artifacts

(in)visible

Ties That Bind