From forming a staging area for community action, to encouraging safe places for identity exploration, the spaces in which we gather can catalyse us all to act. In their simplest form, queer spaces have facilitated queer people to exist and be together, and there will always be a need for them.

In this lavishly illustrated volume, Adam Nathaniel Furman and Joshua Mardell have gathered together contributors to share stories of spaces, from the educational to the institutional to the re-appropriated, and many more, that recognise LGBTQIA+ life as strong, vibrant, vigorous, and worthy of its own place in history. Looking forward, it suggests visions of what form these spaces may take in the future to continue uplifting queer lives and encouraging active communities.

On 23 June, Grimshaw invites you to join the book presentation and a panel discussion chaired by Adam Nathaniel Furman and Joshua Mardell, editors of 'Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories'.

Speakers:

― Veronica Mckenzie, Writer, filmmaker & history buff

― Ben Campkin, Professor of Urbanism and Urban History at The Bartlett School of Architecture; Co-Director, UCL Urban Laboratory

Doors open at 6 pm

Panel Event starts at 6:30 pm

Books on sale, book signing

Drinks reception all evening

Optional donation to The Outside Project charity

"This magnificent book reveals the near-unbelievable ingenuity, courage and skill of queer people in creating conditions for themselves … it is a luminous queer archive-cum-party in its own right, avowedly diverse, multiple and full of life."

― Olivia Laing, writer, novelist and cultural critic

"A rich stew of the strange, the wonderful, and the queer."

― Aaron Betsky, critic on art, architecture and design

Veronica Mckenzie, Writer, filmmaker & history buff

Veronica's groundbreaking documentary 'UNDER YOUR NOSE' about the UK's first Black Lesbian and Gay Centre (2017), stems from her interest in unearthing the UK's black queer history, and led to Haringey Vanguard, a National Heritage Lottery oral history project, capturing the lived experiences of the UK’s black LGBTQ+ community in the 70s and 80s. Veronica has co-produced several short films. Debut feature 'NINE NIGHTS' starring Jo Martin and T'Nia Miller won a PAFF Feature Narrative Award and is currently on Amazon and Apple TV. Veronica is currently developing a range of TV and film projects and is fundraising for a plaque to honour the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre.

Ben Campkin, Professor of Urbanism and Urban History at The Bartlett School of Architecture; Co-Director, UCL Urban Laboratory

Ben Campkin is Professor of Urbanism and Urban History at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Co-Director of UCL Urban Laboratory, and the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (2013), which won the 2015 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Foundation Award. The research Ben leads on LGBTQ+ Night-spaces has informed the London Plan, local borough provisions for LGBTQ+ spaces, and campaigns to protect LGBTQ+ heritage. Ben is completing a book on LGBTQ+ venues in London since the 1980s, Queer Premises (forthcoming with Bloomsbury) and is the UK Principal Investigator for the EU research collaboration, Night-spaces, Migration, Culture and Integration in Europe.