Communities and the ways they are formed have changed due to the rise of the Internet. On the one hand, we are living in a more individualized and atomized society. On the other, online spaces offers us new ways to build communities, take care of each other, imagine ourselves, or to even rethink our physical selves. In queer communities the concept of safe(r) spaces is important both online and offline. How do we create and navigate safe(r) spaces within the framework of existing technologies and software that is heavily coded within existing norms and biases?

In this evening, Gabriel A. Maher & Roberto Perez Gayo [they/them] will welcome us to experience Zoom in a spatial way, and to challenge and re-appropriate the conditions, embedded norms and ways of socialising in it. Welcome ZOMO! Together we will collectively transform and co-opt this platform as a space that centres queer experiences. Further, they will invite us to consider ‘self’ making practices as relational processes, bound to community and collectivity.

ZOMO guests

• Welcoming you in the kitchen: Dr. Mijke van der Drift [they/them]
• Welcoming you in the living / dining room: Joy Mariama Smith [they/them]
• Welcoming you in the bedroom: [{“CIBELLE"(CAVALLI}BASTOS)] [they/them]
• Welcoming you on the stairs: Clodagh Read [they/them]

As a collaborative duo of interdisciplinary designers, Maher & Perez Gayo center their work on critical, analytical and participatory approaches to design and research. They consider effects of design and designing on bodies and the shaping of identity. Operating from queer and intersectional frameworks, they investigate relationships between bodies and spaces, and focus on public space and architectural hybrids where computational technologies, media, and architecture meet.

Practical information

The evening starts at 20.00 via Zoom. In order to participate, you have to reserve a free ticket via Eventbrite. Next week, no later than Thursday 5 November in the afternoon, you will receive an email with the Zoom link.