Let them Eat…

In collaboration with the Queer School of Thought program (part of the MArch Architecture course at CSM), Queer Aided Design (a student-led collective from Cambridge University) organized a workshop that re-imagined the form of a dinner party to celebrate, share and discuss the outcomes of the Queer School of Thought with architecture students from across institutions and levels of study (BA, MA & PHD).

Drawing up the long history of dinner parties as co-produced performances of lavish excess, we experimented with what it means to hold a workshop. For this event we brought together students from across a variety of architectural institutions not only to reinforce the networks that support them but to elaborate the meaning of Queer Aided Design. Through the collaborative production of a manifesto, we set out our hopes and desires as an emerging collective of young queer architects, designers and space-makers. The manifesto was recorded in a large piece of donated fabric that served as a tablecloth during the event and later on as a performative device in Granary Square. There, the participants of this workshop claimed queer territory using the fabric manifesto as an act of visibility and defiance within the contested, privately owned space of the square.

Collaborators: Queer Aided Design (Isaac Simmonds-Douglas, Thomas Philips, Mary Holmes) & Kleanthis Kyriakou (CSM)