POSTPONED: Queer Spaces and Queer Fun: A joint OutLaws and qUCL Seminar

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE CURRENT CORONAVIRUS SITUATION

This event is co-hosted by OutLaws and by qUCL

Speakers

Dr Ben Walters, Prof. Ben Campkin, and Lo Marshall

About this seminar

In this seminar, we will explore ideas of “queer space” and “queer fun”, thinking about how queer nightlife spaces can offer LGBTQ+ Londoners safety, community, culture, and fun.

Ben Campkin and Lo Marshall will present findings from various interlinked projects on LGBTQ+ spaces and scenes in London. These have used mixed qualitative and quantitative and archival methods including in-depth case studies of extant and closed venues, analysis of planning documents, a digital map of night venues and events from 1986 to the present, and collaborations with activists and policy makers to address the planning and equalities issues raised in redevelopment contexts. This research has been recognised by the Mayor and has been cited in the city’s Cultural Infrastructure Strategy and Supplementary Planning Guidance on Culture and the Night-time Economy, in borough plans, and in a variety of planning cases. The findings inspired professional network Planning Out to design a new LGBTQ+ Venues Toolkit for planners. A selection of the case studies featured in the recent exhibition Queer Spaces: 1980s–Today at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and the BBC Radio 4 programme, Going to the Gay Bar.

Considering the history, importance and fragility of LGBTQ+ spaces, Ben Walters will speak in his part of the seminar to the civic value of fun. This typically trivialised mode of activity operates as a surprisingly potent technology of social change, not least in queer contexts, enabling intervention in existing structures and the creation of new ones.

About the speakers

Ben Campkin is Professor of Architectural History and Theory and Urbanism and Co-Director of UCL Urban Lab. He is the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (2013), which won the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Foundation Award. Ben was a founder member of qUCL. He is completing a book on LGBTQ+ spaces and infrastructures in London, Queer Premises.

Mx Lo Marshall is a Research Fellow at UCL Urban Laboratory and researches gender diversity and sexuality as a Doctoral Researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Department of Geography, UCL.

Ben Walters is a writer and researcher engaged in campaigning around London's LGBTQ+ spaces. As a member of RVT Future, Ben wrote the application that made the Royal Vauxhall Tavern the UK's first queer listed building. He is also a member of the Black Cap Foundation and has collaborated with UCL Urban Laboratory, City Hall and Whitechapel Gallery on related research. Ben recently finished a PhD at Queen Mary University of London about Duckie's community projects, queer fun and homemade mutant hope machines.

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