In 1993, Storefront for Art & Architecture wrote a manifesto calling out to artists/designers for a response to the notion of Queer Space. The manifesto was as follows:
Wanted
Queer Space Manifestos/Proposals
Flaming through outer space? or cruising your inner child?
ACTing UP? going down, carrying on.
Hang around, come across, put out, jerk off, log on, boogie down, work through, fashion forward, lay back.
Safety. Danger. Uptown. Downtown. Ask. Tell.
Where are the traces of all our queer ancestors? Where did they arrive, shelter, display, disport, depart?
Melvin Dixon says: "I'll be somewhere, listening for my name."
Vows and disavowals. Trade, betrayal, tradition. Erasures - racisms - races, Laborors, Labours: Loafing, luxuries and loveliness. A homeless person's "right to privacy" - where does it live? Younger and older, effeminate/femme/feminine/masculine/butch. Commotions, emotions, movements.
Dignity/ pride/ exhibitionism/ shyness/ shame/ attitude/ public displays of affection
"all the rage"
when is a march a parade a demonstration?
The dictionary says "Queer from German quer (oblique, cross, adverse)"
What makes space queer? How to give queer space a history and a future, a powerful presence? What's the queerest in utopias, in diasporas, in environments, in intimacies, in bowling leagues, in health and illness, in solidarity, in urban pets, in nationalism and cosmopolitanism, in self-defense, in cyberspace, in jobs and no jobs, in film and video, in the Christian Right, in memory, in the hypothalmus, in the high schools, in dancing and walking, in civil society, and in interior decorating? The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York is soliciting QUEER SPACE PROPOSALS and MANIFESTO/PROPOSALS.
EVE KOSOFSKY SEDGWICK
November 1, 1993
This was one response:
WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE LIVE
We placed an ad in the classified sections of gay paper in two mid-sized cities: Columbus, Ohio and Ottawa, Canada. In the ad we asked members of the gay and lesbian community to send two 3x5 snapshots of their homes, one exterior view and one interior view. We also asked them to indicate their age, their gender, if they live alone, with roommates or a lover, and whether they consider their neighborhood urban or suburban. The photos allow us to explore (and explode) stereotypes about the gay community, who we are and how we live. It also allows us to examine certain assumptions - like the myth that gay men are urban dwellers, while lesbians prefer suburbia.
BENJAMIN GIANNI AND MARK ROBBINS
Source: Storefront for Art and Architecture, 1994
http://www.storefrontnews.org/newsletter/archive/075_Newsletter.pdf
(Large download file: 11MB)
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