Digitisation has allowed film archives to circulate footage on a nation-wide or even global scale, for instance via online exhibition. Yet, what happens if the queer “archive of feeling” (Cvetkovich) is entering the (heteronormative) public sphere? This paper sets out to discuss the ambivalences of queer visibility in relation to archival practice and access politics. Drawing on an understanding of the archive as an agent in its own right and on the practice of archiving as a performative act, this paper will outline the challenges involved when curating access to archival footage dealing with LGBT-activism. In my current research project “The Cultural Memory of Moving Images” (2016-18) I look at the politics of archives as heritage institutions and their practice of creating polyvocal memories by creating online access to digitized collections. While visibility has been a political goal for LGBT-struggle in the West, the question of archival visibility and its ambivalences need to be further explored. Merging conceptualisations of the archive as an instrument of power (Foucault, Derrida) and a site of both materiality (Steadman) and affect (Cvetkovich), I will examine queer archival practice (Halberstam, Muñoz, Danbolt, Stone/Cantrell) in national film archives as well as 'minor' archives, such as the Lesbian Home Movie Project (Maine) or the feminist video archive bildwechsel (Hamburg). I argue that it is not enough to merely preserve, restore and digitize archival film footage, but archivists need to (re-)contextualise its queer potential through metadata, curatorial practices and oral history interviews.