Burning Down the Patriarchy at Schwules Museum. Exhibiting Petra Gall’s photos from the West-Berlin feminist and lesbian scenes in the 1980s and 1990s

Dr Birga Meyer

Managing Director at Schwules Museum in Berlin

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The Berlin Gay Museum, or in its German name, the Schwules Museum (SMU), was founded in 1985 and has now become, over 40 years later, an important centre that exhibits and archives queer history, art and activism. Emerging from within the gay movement in Germany, the SMU has always been a political space: its exhibits, archival practice, education and outreach programmes are, by nature, deeply political, as the SMU centres on queer lives, queer identities and queer people rights.

The archives and collection of the SMU hold over 1.5 million documents, photographs, films and objects mainly, but not exclusively, in German. Each year, the museum showcases three to five main exhibitions devoted to topical issues relevant to both the various LGBTIQA+ communities and the general public - such as the intersection between disability and queerness, the global intersex movement or a direly needed history from and by sex workers. The museum also critically examines the queer scene itself - for instance, by addressing racism within the white-dominated queer scenes and the SMU itself.

The exhibition Burning down the Patriarchy. The Berlin women and lesbians' scene photographed by Petra Gall, which I curated together with my colleague Collin Klugbauer, did not avoid this topic. Open to the public from July 2025, it concluded in May 2026.

Fig. 1. Exhibition Burning down the Patriarchy. © Patricia Sevilla Ciordia, SMU

Petra Gall (1955-2018): A Documentary-style Photographer

Petra Gall, whose photographic work on the feminist and lesbian scenes in West Berlin was showcased in the exhibition, was born in 1955 and came to Berlin in 1981. She founded a photo agency along with Heide Zimmermann, worked for newspapers and magazines, published books and calendars and, most importantly, photographed everything everywhere she went. She captured the underground music scene in Berlin, took many pictures of the feminist and lesbian movements she herself was an active part of, shot photos during her many travels (to the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, for example) and took photos of Berlin east and west the wall. When she died in 2018 at 63 years old, she left a huge body of work, comprising over 200,000 negatives, photos and contact sheets, which, according to Petra Gall's own wish, are housed at the SMU archive since 2012, but were not researched until 2020.

Fig. 2. Self Portrait, undated. © Petra Gall, SMU

The Museum's Research on Her Work

Due to the dire funding situation of non-state archives such as SMU, large portions of our collections are not fully accessible, as we don't have the necessary resources to catalogue and research all estates. This was the case for Petra Gall's body of work until 2020, when the museum secured two large grants from the Research and Competence Centre for Digitization Berlin (digiS), allowing us to research the two major parts of her collection. From 2020 to 2021, Anne Krause and Dr Michael Bucher worked on her music photography and researched the contents of these photos, catalogued them and digitised over 4,000 negatives. It brought to light just how much of the Berlin music scene Petra Gall captured, and revealed intimate shots of Nick Cave, the Einstürzende Neubauten or Diamanda Galás, as well as amazing photos from David Bowie, Tina Turner or Rainbirds' live shows.

Fig. 3. Tina Turner concert at Waldbühne Berlin, 2 July 1987. © Petra Gall, SMU

Another part of Petra Gall's estate, the photography of the West Berlin feminist and lesbian scenes, was researched, catalogued and digitised by Laura Niebuhr and Janika Seitz from 2022 to 2024. On these roughly 2.000 photos, we see activists, artists and authors, events and demonstrations, such as the famous demonstration for women's right to move freely and without fear of violence at night: the Walpurgisnacht[1] demonstration, that happens annually and which Petra Gall photographed for over 10 years (Fig. 4). Both the music and the activist parts of the estate are, thanks to these two projects, available online on the Museum Digital Berlin website and database.

Fig. 4. Dancing at the Walpurgisnacht demonstration, 30 April 1994. © Petra Gall, SMU

These digitisation projects are what made the exhibition on Petras Gall's view of the feminist and lesbian movements possible. Thanks to these projects and the archivists who successfully carried them out, we know more about Gall's body of work and we were able to identify some of the activists portrayed in the amazing photos she took. Petra Gall photographed in a documentary style, and her pictures allow us to catch a glimpse of how vibrant, alive and active the feminist and lesbian scenes in West Berlin were during the 1980s and 1990s. As my colleague Collin Klugbauer and I wrote in the exhibition's presentation: 'Her photos show squats occupied by women and lesbians and feminist projects such as the cultural venue Pelze Multimedia or the Schokofabrik, which still exists today. We see women and lesbian concerts and lively women and lesbian parties. Photos of sex-positive events such as a BDSM erotic weekend or the Night of the Raging Cunts party illustrate how women and lesbians counter the harsh conditions in society with queer and feminist solidarity and a little tenderness'.

Petra Gall's Perspective on the Feminist and Lesbian Activism of the 1980s and the 1990s

The exhibition Burning down the Patriarchy. The Berlin women and lesbians' scene photographed by Petra Gall clearly showed that not only had feminist and lesbian scenes existed, but that they were in fact quite visible, loud and present in many ways. The feminist and lesbian activists who got involved in these scenes were part of the squatter movement and secured housing and spaces where organisations could form and offer their services, and where people could meet and mingle. Feminists and lesbians were also a very important part of Berlin's protest culture. They organised demonstrations for women's rights, performances that heightened lesbian visibility and events that fought against violence and stigmatisation - but they also participated in demonstrations against the Gulf War, atomic power or the rise of the neo-Nazi movement in Germany in the 1990s. Last but not least, they had their own cultural scene; they produced art, music and performances, and offered women, lesbian, trans and intersex people spaces to party, dance and meet one another in an environment that was their own.

Fig. 5. Demonstration on Women's Day with a banner that reads 'Lesbians are everywhere', 8 March 1994. © Petra Gall, SMU

Petra Gall's perspective on these scenes is not all encompassing: despite her love for the city scape of East Berlin, feminists and lesbians of that area do not often appear in her photos. Moreover, in response to racism, women and lesbians of color built parallel structures and are largely absent from her photos. Disability activists appear in a few images only and accessibility is not addressed in detail, and the emerging debates about the inclusion or exclusion of transgender and intersex people who have always been an integral part of the feminist and lesbian scenes is not portrayed. Here, other work must be supplemented to gain a better picture of these movements in Berlin.

Still, Petra Gall's photos do show much was going on and just how strong, fierce, fun and productive the lesbian legacy is; the activism of the feminist and lesbian movements in the 1980s and 1990s drastically changed society. Women and lesbians fought for economic equality and for social and legal recognition. They demanded rights over their bodies and campaigned against sexual violence. They created numerous spaces to protest, think, celebrate and fuck. The achievements they have fought for are still relevant today, whether it be the existence of feminist parties, or the establishment of gender quotas or of support centres for those affected by sexist and queer-hostile violence. Today, women shape politics, lesbians are visible in everyday life, and numerous self-determined spaces exist.

Fig. 6. Exhibition Burning down the Patriarchy. © Patricia Sevilla Ciordia, SMU

Conclusion

The exhibition Burning down the Patriarchy. The Berlin women and lesbians' scene photographed by Petra Gall, that was made possible via archival research, paid tribute to Petra Gall's work and celebrated the many achievements of the feminist and lesbian movements of the time. It also showed how the struggles of the 1980s and 1990s are still relevant today, as the fights against criminalisation of abortion and against sexual violence, and for equal rights, freedom and bodily autonomy for everyone continue all over the world.

The SMU calls on other museums to dig into their collections and to showcase and document feminist fights for equal rights!

[1] Editor's note: Before becoming, in the 21st century, a cultural event - a peaceful feminist/queer/punk music festival in Berlin (in a neighbourhood where women used to be afraid to walk around at night in past decades) - Walpurgisnacht, or 'Walpurgis Night', a pagan festival marking the change of season (the spring counterpart to Samhain) and the 'night of the witches', was a recurring feminist demonstration following a famous first protest organised on the night of 30 April to 1 May 1977.