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The '''[[Office of Queer Affairs (OoQA)]]''' is a parasitic, fluid, mutating '''[[collective body]]''' involved with the '''[https://vanabbemuseum.nl/ Van Abbemuseum]''' that embeds and entangles the perspectives of '''Eindhoven's queer community''' into the museum's '''curatorial practices''', '''public programming''' and '''[[Queer Bookclub|educational activities]].''' In our group, we have members, ancestors, allies, lovers and frenemies, all living inside and outside of Eindhoven, each with their own desires, sensibilities and socio-political activisms. The group is always loosely weaved together, sometimes gathering closer together to run projects and other times sprawling apart to grow in their separate directions.

We also consider oursleves the naughty youngest child of the museum being born around eight years ago  in the wet and '''[[Eindhoven|windy]],''' desolate land of '''Eindhoven'''. And through our community we have found a place to live out our queer adolescence where we plot the hijack of the toilets, flirt with the paintings and make out with Angela Davis on the carpet of the "women's" room.  

We believe the office to be a [[communal body]] where we sometimes only have our hands and feet but we are happy with the incomplete, so its okay. There's always room for a dramatic exit or a slip in because we will ever be in flux and our [[ancestors]] are only a phone call away.  

We're always messy, non-hierarchical, attentive and caring. We have non-definitions for membership, allyship and group ancestry. Our group is incomplete, always in transition and often taking breaks.

Before the OoQA there was the beginning. In the beginning there was the creator, '''[[Olle]]''' Lundin grauated from '''Design Academy''' in 2016 and as part of that graduation he created a project. '''Queering the Collection''' was a collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum that questioned not only how we interact with the museum, but also the why of the status quo of behaviors and structures that seem so concrete and so rigid at times. The Van Abbemuseum quickly realised that these gays were onto something.  

At the same time the Van Abbemuseum was launching itself as a self described "'''constituent museum'''" and they engaged Olle as a liason with the "consitutencies" - groups of people who were to engage with the museum in varying capacities. Olle found '''Claire''' and they formed a '''[[Queer Bookclub|bookclub]]''' within the walls of museum. '''Karl''', '''[[Noam]]''' and '''Tadhg''' quickly followed and brought a kinetic kinship to the group. Together with the bookclub the newly formed '''Queer Constituency''' became the new "enfant terrible" of the museum and began stomping around the exhibition halls in full toddler glory.  

As the newly annoited and self-proclaimed "naughty youngest child" of the museum we embodied a playfullness through our practice but demanded respect and took up space in the museum. We flexed our legs and got to work planning events through which we could grow our community and interrogate the practices of the museum. We were joined by '''Malou''' who had a profound impact on the group as a creative force and playful facilitator of community building. They spearheaded the '''Museum Drag Ups.''' At this moment we were considered '''volunteers''' and did not recieve renumeration for our work beyond a volunteer fee. We felt our contributions were worth more.