Rainbow Research Fellowship

About the Fellowship

The Rainbow Research Fellowship supports research, exploration, and creation of new knowledge about Queensland’s LGBTIQA+ histories and communities using the John Oxley Library and State Library collections and resources.

The fellowship, first of its kind in Queensland and potentially Australia, supports a more inclusive telling of Queensland history.

The Fellowship recipient receives a stipend of $20,000, a personal workspace within the Neil Roberts Research Lounge for 12 months and premium access to State Library’s extensive collections and library staff expertise.

Browse our collection to discover ephemera, photographs, posters, costumes and other items that celebrate the diversity of LGBTIQA+ communities in Queensland.

The Rainbow Research Fellowship is generously supported by the Queensland Library Foundation.

2025 Rainbow Research Fellowship

The 2025 Rainbow Research Fellowship was awarded to Dr Marion Stell and Professor Celmara Pocock for their project, Queering the Lens: Cross-Dressing in Family Photograph Albums.

Buried deep within family photograph albums of the twentieth century lies a hidden collection capturing people joyfully engaging in the practice of cross-dressing. Often associated with celebratory events, these images depict holiday camps, country dances, musical and theatrical performances, hula nights, mock weddings, guesthouse parties, military barracks, and even charity cricket matches. This activity was widespread, popular, and socially embraced, performed across both city and rural settings as light-hearted, socially acceptable entertainment, often staged as photogenic occasions.

Despite its popularity, many instances of this practice have remained unseen, uncaptioned, uncatalogued, or overlooked. This project will not only uncover previously unrecorded images but will also provide the library with language, metadata standards, and terminology to catalogue and recognise these images as an integral part of Queensland's and Australia’s queer history.

Blog:

Queering the Lens: Cross-Dressing in Family Photograph Albums

Marion Stell and Professor Celmara Pocock, 2025 Rainbow Research Fellows.

Watch this video to explore Marion and Celmara's research project, and don’t miss the full video highlighting all the 2025 Queensland Memory Awards recipients and their inspiring projects.