Queer Spaces

Queer people, throughout the world and across time, have always found ways to exist and be together, and there will always be a need for queer spaces, whether celebratory and social, or urgent – even lifesaving. Each of these spaces - from bars, and bookshops, to ice cream parlours, and alternative forms of kinship - have/had their own specificities, architectural contexts, needs, aesthetics, tribulations and joys. This event examines the rich history and legacy of these spaces. It springs from a new edited book for the Royal Institute of British Architects, Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories, edited by artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman and architectural historian Joshua Mardell.

Three invited speakers will discuss queer spaces that are meaningful to them, as well as their adoption and understanding of ‘queer methodologies’ in the history of architecture.

Introduction by Adam and Joshua

With:

Ruhul Abdin 

Urban researcher, architectural designer, artist, teacher, mentor, urbanist, writer, blogger.

Co-founder of Odbhut, a platform for queer Bengalis.

Helen Smith 

School of History and Heritage, University of Lincoln.

Author of Masculinity, Class and Same-Sex Desire in Industrial England, 1895-1957 (2015).

E-J Scott

Central Saints Martins, University of the Arts, London.

Curator of the Museum of Transology, London.

Everyone is welcome! Please register in advance here.

For further details email: joshua.mardell@york.ac.uk

_{Image: 'RIMSULATION' by Adam Nathaniel Furman (detail)}