6 minute read

presentation critique

I used coded forms and architectural norms as if the final jury were the “board,” and the gradient of covert versus overt was at its most extreme. If the legislative agendas of Mississippi, the quantitative mapping relating to the larger region, and the documented queer experiences of the city of Jackson are any indication, this subversive pitch strategy is crucial to the viability of this proposal having any chance at being built and helping queer folk in the city and satellite small towns.

Advertisement

In order to get this kind of affront built, albeit as a theoretical suggestion, the subversion must extend to policy.

In the beginning “realistic” renderings, I only showed those parts of the project that were visible to everyone, or the “everyman.” The 20 seconds of excruciating silence, after the conventional plans and renderings were presented and I ceased speaking, were effective according to the jury, who were understandably worried after the pause. By presenting the project in this way, as “fakeout,” the critique effectively extends to all levels of architectural design and representation.

In terms of renderings, this one has a signal as well; the man in higher definition at center is one of those unknowing “passerby,” while the two shrouded figures behind his view are “in the know.” A community member points out the secret entry to a new sanctuary attendee.

I used this image as the “last slide” of the first presentation—the pivot point between the narrative—because it is the exact pivot point of entry in the project.

Once we pass through the filter and into the interior, the sanctuary comes into focus. Though it can be serene, the space can change aesthetics for a lecture or event, or even a rave when the pit can be used to full effect.

In the interior of the armory, light, shadow and filtering take on new meaning. An aquatic shimmering is filtered in through hover baths, while fortified wall punches give serial sifting. As for the people in the armory itself, specifically ones occupying the work spaces on the first level, they are elected democratically as part of the sanctuary community and work together, multi-inter-transdisciplinarily, to collaboratively enact change in the vein of design dispersion. There can be traveling plant events, live entertainment, academic lectures…

The pleasure gardens act as a kind of intermediary negotiation between the complicated binaries of internal/external and exclusive/inclusive.

The spaces here can be used for communicating, luxuriating, or loving. This exterior space can also at times be open to LGBTQ allies, so that they may support and enjoy the proposal without infringing on a sacred safe space.

The gardens can accommodate multiple agendas at once. A picnic and a reunion, for example, call for gradients of privacy. It’s not and/or, but both/and. The turning point from monastery to armory, pictured below, turns the corner both literally and figuratively from safe haven to defensive centre. The juncture of soft/ hard, sanctity/self, and community/ curvilinearity highlight the embedded embraces of the project.

I’ll end here with a theoretical “design” use of the armory that engages a transdisciplinary kind of queering. You can trace “the life cycle of a seed” in the previous diagram through four major steps: GET, GROW, GIVE, and GROW again.

In this example, the armory for design and defense is adopting a nonbinary “both/and” strategy; the designs here can be ecological, architectural, sociological… and begin building a coded network of safe spaces or rendezvous points that ripple far beyond the site.

In this way, one can trace the life of a single seed through many hands, places, and processes until it finds its way home. In this example, an ornamental planting such as a cherry blossom tree can become a coded signal—perhaps even monument—for community, companionship, and safety beyond any singular safe site.

GET seeds

the collaborative nature (pun intended) of a nursery space within the armory and/or garden facilitate longer-term community building and, throughout the life cycle on to build onto something more.

GROW seedlings

planting the seeds, either outside in the garden or inside the armory, begins the process of cooperative discovery through an ecolo ns that is both accessible and tangible.

GIVE plants

a crucial aspect of the seed’s trajectory comes in a moment of exchange; here the seed travels beyond the nursery space out into the world to queer folk/ allies, beginning the network.

GROW coded networks

once the planting is transplanted to another site, those “in the know” may utilize it as a rendezvous point, coded signal of safety, or any other form of as grown physically logically into something much larger.

Will you meet me under the cherry blossom tree?

Bell, David & Valentine, Gill. Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities, Routledge: 1st ed, 26

Brown, Michael & Knopp, Larry. “Queering the Map: The Productive Tensions of Colliding Epistemologies,” Annals of the Association of

Bruni, Frank .“The Worst (and Best) Places to Be Gay in America,” The New York Times: Opinion,

Campbell, Larrison. “Why I Moved My Family from L.A. to Jackson, Mississippi,” Architectural Digest,

Chauncey, George. “Privacy Could Only Be Had in Public: Gay Uses of the Streets,” from Stud: Architectures of Masculinity (p. 224), New York :

Choi, Esther & Trotter, Marrikka . Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else, The MIT Press, 2010.

Davis, Tim. “The Diversity of Queer Politics and the Redefinition of Sexual Identity and Community in Urban Space,” from Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities, ed. David Bell & Gil Valentine, 1995.

Flucker, Turry and Hamilton, Anna and Hudson, Kate; advisors Andy Harper, John T. Edge, “The Farish Street Project: What happened to the “black Mecca’ of Mississippi?” Ole Miss, 2014.

Garner, Glenn. “The Queer Oasis of Jackson, Mississippi’s Lone Gay Bar,” Out, 4 September 2019.

Haferd, Jerome. “An Archeology Of Architecture: The Harlem African Burial Ground,” Log 48: Expanding Modes of Practice, Win/Spr 2020.

Hensley, Erica. “‘What happened to Farish Street?’: Accounting for millions of dollars, opportunities lost in a historic Jackson community,” Mississippi

Joseph, Lauren (Stony Brook University). “Finding Space Beyond Variables: An Analytical Review of Urban Space and Social Inequalities,” Spaces for Difference: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 1,

Kempf, Petra. “You are the City,” lecture at Studio-X Rio, 28 March 2016. [https://www.youtube.com/

Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve. Tendencies, Duke

LaRochelle, Lucas. “Queering the Map,” Queering the Map, ongoing [http://lucaslarochelle.com/

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a

Nicole, Sharie. “How OWN reality star, Jackson entrepreneur is ‘buying a block,’ revitalizing Farish St.,” WLBT News, 5 February 2021.

Ohrt, Roberto. “In the Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972,” Branka Bogdanov, 1989.

Oren Smith, Zachary. “Queer love and struggle in Jackson, Mississippi,” Scalawag, 15 April 2019. Pavka, Evan. “What Do We Mean By Queer Space?” Azure, 29 June 2020.

Rosenberg, Matt. “The Bible Belt Extends Throughout the American South,” Thought Co, upd. 28 January 2020.

Samee Ali, Safia. “Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis brings to light long- standing problems in city,” NBC News, 2021.

Sheppard, Lola. “From Site to Territory,” Bracket: Goes Soft, 2012.

Sonnekus, Theo. “The queering of space: Investigating spatial manifestations of homosexuality in De Waterkant, Cape Town,” Taylor & Francis, 24 May 2017.

Tattelman, Ira. “Stud: Architectures of Masculinity by Joel Sanders; Mapping Desire by David Bell; Gill Valentine - Review,” Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 136-138, November 1997.

The State of California. “Prohibition on StateFunded and State- Sponsored Travel to States with Discriminatory Laws,” Assembly Bill no. 1887, 2016.

Thomas, Kate. “Lesbian Arcadia: Desire and Design in the Fin-de- Siècle Garden,” Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, 18 February 2021.

Video

“Jackson | Black Owned,” Square. (via YouTube, 17 January 2021) [https://youtu.be/xz8loUhQysI]

“City leaders speak out about Farish Street Project,” 16 WAPT News Jackson. (via YouTube, 15 October 2013) [https://youtu.be/_ Y6vGP2N3hs]”

Image Citations

Tanner Vargas, Scattered Sanctity, 2021, digital image, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Tanner Vargas, Shimmerplan, 2021, digital drawing, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Rozana Montiel (photo by Jaime Navarro), Fresnillo Playground, 2018, photograph (ed. Tanner Vargas).

Tuca Vieira, Paraisópolis, 2004, photograph (ed. Tanner Vargas).

Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images (from The Maison Margiela Fall 2018 Artisanal runway), 2018, photograph.

Tanner Vargas, Umbrellas, 2020, digital diagram.

Chris Hadfield, US-Mexico Border From Space (“Same land, different politics.” - from Twitter), May 8, 2013, photograph.

Teddy Cruz & Fonna Forman, Conflict Map, 2016, digital drawing, UIC Barcelona.

Eds. Esther Choi & Marrikka Trotter, Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else, 2010, book [The MIT Press].

Author Unknown, Vauxhall Gardens Map 1844-49, 1848, map.

Edward G. Lawson, The Villa Gamberaia, Settingnano, circa 1917, watercolor illustration.

Edmond Paulin, The Baths of Diocletian, 1880, watercolor.

Gerald Hannon (courtesy of Pride Toronto & the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives), Gay Rights Demonstration, 1981, photograph.

SOPHIE, “It’s Okay to Cry,” from Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, 2017, music video still.

Alex Garland, The Shimmer (from Annihilation), 2018, film still.

Tanner Vargas, SOPHIE I, 2020, digital image.

Tanner Vargas, Mapping the Queer Experience Across the United States (gathered from the Human Rights Campaign), 2021.

Lucas LaRochelle, Queering the Map, 2017-present, interactive digital mapping archive still capture [https://www. queeringthemap.com/].

Charles C. Mosley, Jr., Farish Street March 17, 1947 (courtesy of the Farish Street Project), 1947, photograph.

Google Earth, Farish Street Historic District (north end), maps capture, cap. 2019, acc. 2021.

This article is from: