“Queering the Museum”—a key concept in the self-understanding of Queer Museum Vienna (QMV)—refers not just to thematic content, but to a set of principles that shape both the internal practices of the collective and its institutional strategies. These principles operate by questioning established routines and professional norms, thereby critically engaging with the dominant logics of exhibition-making within Vienna’s cultural landscape.

 

The phrase Breaking the Habitus does not imply abrupt rupture, but rather a collective, experiential process of learning—grounded in Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as the internalized social structures that guide action and perception. QMV asks: how can queer theory be practiced institutionally through the museum form? After five years of experimental cultural work, the collective invites the public to a plenum that opens up its backstage—creating space for informal, often hidden forms of knowledge that usually remain behind applications, programming, or exhibitions. The project has emerged relationally: through collaborations with institutions like the Volkskundemuseum Wien or the archive initiative QWIEN, as well as through encounters with diverse publics at the Otto Wagner Areal—such as unhoused individuals, users of mental health services, and older residents. The plenum creates an open space for reflection and exchange, moderated by QMV members and shaped by long-term collaborators from art, culture, and institutions.

 

Rather than stabilizing norms, QMV has developed a fragile but generative mode of institutional practice—aimed at reorganizing infrastructures through a queer lens. Breaking the Habitus makes this situated knowledge accessible, takes the messiness of learning seriously, and seeks to develop a language capable of translating these insights into broader cultural contexts—without simplifying their complexity.

 

The event accompanies the current exhibition ugly things_unlearning beauty, curated by Thomas Trabitsch.