Exhibition will be open through Sunday April 29

Transient and marginal, queer space dissolves mainstream binaries and counters alienation while providing a misfit haven. An enduring narrative of resistance has developed from queer identities, one with historical ties to socialism, feminism, prison abolition, environmentalism and anti-racism. Queer space describes a moment in which certain freedoms of gender identity and sexuality exist between norms and before tags of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual take hold and remap the space.

Emerging from six months of conversation among members of Queers in the Built Environment (QuBE), this exhibit conceptualizes Queer Space as a moment of rupture from the normative through subverting forms, co-opting spaces, dissolving categorical assumptions, and exhibiting attitudes and behaviors that express new freedoms of identity. We begin to challenge the limits of history by positioning snapshots of queer activity against and within architectural paradigms. The promenade and its inherent objectification; the metaphorical fortress, or closet, which may be just as public as the promenade; and the superhomo, the exaggerated identity formation exemplified by mainstream gay popular culture, reveal multiple paradoxes in constructing space and identity. We examine the queer(ing) of space, the predicament of multiple and shifting identities that undermine both heteronormativity and homonormativity. In proposing a desiring historical narrative, we prompt a re-reading of recognizable spaces and typologies to expose incongruence, the ‘ghosts in the machine.’

Gallery Photos

View larger on the Flickr Group

A discussion with Dr. Gary J. Gates,
Williams Institute Distinguished Scholar, UCLA School of Law

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
6:00 – 7:30 PM

MIT Stata Center, Room 32-141
32 Vassar Street (at Main Street)
Cambridge, MA (one block west of the Kendall T Stop)

How well do you know the LGBT community?

What do “queer families” look like?
Where do same-sex couples live?
How many LGBT people are in the military?
What about the Trans community?

Join QuBE for a discussion of the demographics of the LGBT community with Gary Gates, one of America’s leading LGBT demographers.

Dr. Gary J. Gates serves as the Williams Distinguished Scholar at the Charles R. Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy. Dr. Gates co-authored The Gay and Lesbian Atlas and is a recognized national expert on the geography and demography of the gay and lesbian population.

See the event poster.

Co-Sponsored By

In Collaboration With

The Harvard Kennedy School LGBTQ Caucus

The MIT Rainbow Lounge

Mass Equity

Places and Spaces of the Gender Conference Community is a mapping project that examined the community of academics, thinkers, artists, and designers who comprise the 2011 Gender, Sexuality and Urban Space Conference at MIT.

Information was collected by surveying the conference participants, asking for their locations, the names, and locations of three mentors in their field, and three “queer spaces.” The results were compiled into a infographic interpretation of a collective notion of queer spaces. As we investigate the terms queer space, queer planning, and queer architecture, we also find it important to recognize and record the definitions held by our community of academics who are interested in similar issues of gender, sexuality, and space.

See the full infographic.

The project was subsequently released as a series of three “snapshots” which included a quote from a memorable queer space in collaboration with Little t.

This project was completed by Stephen Kennedy, JD Sassaman, Daniel Simon, Ann Solomon, and Dominick Tribone from QuBE (Queers in the Built Environment) in collaboration with Jonathan Crisman from Little t. You can download a digital copy of the project snapshot cards here or a digital copy of the full mapping project here.

For more information, visit: