Mothers and Daughters: calling for memories, building a collective queer archive

Mothers and Daughters, Brussels’ beloved lesbian & trans bar and art space, is looking back on eight years of community, nightlife and DIY organising – and they want your voice in the mix. From the glitter of the disco ball to the A&B menu and the many “working bee” moments behind the bar, the team is launching a collective publication and is calling on regulars, friends and fellow travellers to share their stories.

Share your story for a new publication

To honour the many lives, friendships and political imaginations that have passed through Mothers and Daughters, the bar is putting together a collective print publication in collaboration with Girls Like Us Magazine. The idea is to use objects from the bar’s history – the décor, tools, menus, artworks and improvised infrastructure that kept the space going – as starting points to speak about lesbian and trans self‑organising, joy, care and the lessons learned along the way.

Anyone who has a memory attached to these objects – whether it is a wild party, a quiet conversation in the corner, a workshop, a shift behind the bar or a moment of recognition on the dancefloor – is invited to send in a short text between 100 and 400 words. Stories should be sent by email to bar@mothersanddaughters.be before 1 April.​

The publication will bring together new writing, conversations and visual work from different contributors. It aims to celebrate memories, map tools and strategies for grassroots organising, and make sure that the legacy of Mothers and Daughters continues to live – even beyond the walls and timeframes of the physical bar.

Eight years of lesbian & trans space‑making

Mothers and Daughters first appeared in 2017, growing out of a series of events hosted by Girls Like Us (GLU). What started as a temporary bar and art project soon became a recurring space where lesbian and, since 2019, explicitly trans communities could gather, experiment and feel at home in Brussels.

Over the past eight years, the project has multiplied into three ephemeral bar appearances, two exhibitions, two signature brews and a wide range of workshops, events and gatherings. Each edition reinvented the space while keeping the same political backbone: creating room for lesbian and trans people to meet, organise, party and imagine futures together in and around Brussels.

Now, after this intense and fertile cycle, Mothers and Daughters is taking a step back to look at its own archive. By focusing on the very concrete objects that made the bar possible – from lighting to furniture, from printed menus to improvised tools – the team invites the community to reflect on what it takes to build and sustain queer spaces in a city like Brussels, and how these fragile infrastructures can be remembered and transmitted.

From personal memories to public archives

The stories around Mothers and Daughters do not have to end with the bar or even with this publication. In Brussels, there is now an LGBT Archives Fund set up by the City of Brussels, dedicated to preserving objects, documents, posters, photos and ephemera linked to LGBTQIA+ life in the city – including nightlife spaces like Mothers and Daughters. As Ket.Brussels reported in “Discovering Our Stories: The LGBT Archive Fund of the City of Brussels”, this fund treats queer lives and histories as something worth preserving in the long term, not just as temporary projects.

So if you are digging through your drawers to write a story for the Mothers and Daughters x Girls Like Us publication, it might also be the perfect moment to think about what could one day be donated to the city’s collections: a flyer, a poster, a menu, a photo, a T‑shirt, or any other material trace of the bar and its community. These contributions help ensure that future generations will find more than just rumours about queer Brussels – they will find concrete proofs of our presence, our organising and our joy.

Useful links

More details on the call and visuals of the objects that inspired it can be found on Mothers and Daughters’ channels and partners’ sites:

Brussels City Museum – “LGBTQIA+ BXL, Collecting Memories”: **https://www.brusselscitymuseum.brussels/en/expositions-ep/lgbtqia-bxl-collecting-memories**​

Mothers and Daughters website: **https://www.mothersanddaughters.be**​

Mothers and Daughters on Facebook: **https://www.facebook.com/mothersanddaughtersbar**​

Girls Like Us Magazine: **https://www.girlslikeusmagazine.com**​

Ket.Brussels feature on the LGBT Archives Fund of the City of Brussels: **https://ket.brussels/2025/05/14/day-8-discovering-our-stories-the-lgbt-archives-fund-of-the-city-of-brussels/**​

KET Magazine is a community‑driven, non‑profit magazine run by volunteers based in Brussels. Get in touch to share your thoughts or tell us about your activities. You can also promote your events on our website or support our work with a donation. Contact us at Info@ket.brussels.