https://queerlandscapes.com Queer Landscapes Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:26 +0000 https://queerlandscapes.com en https://queerlandscapes.com/Homepage Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:15 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Homepage <img width="800" height="800" width_o="800" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d2c5395798b8a1bc349e70825a4ccd602dac4ec98c0b4b6c33750c44a8186358/ASTERIX.gif" data-mid="128346598" border="0" data-scale="91" data-no-zoom src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/d2c5395798b8a1bc349e70825a4ccd602dac4ec98c0b4b6c33750c44a8186358/ASTERIX.gif" /> https://queerlandscapes.com/Short-Mountain Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:18 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Short-Mountain <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/80e3c505a12aeda592eadbe05ae8d1516994241b5fcc681d1200e3738aafde75/HERBUS-100px.png" data-mid="128516299" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/80e3c505a12aeda592eadbe05ae8d1516994241b5fcc681d1200e3738aafde75/HERBUS-100px.png" /> Short Mountain TYPE: NaturalDESIGN: Communal LOCATION: Liberty, TennesseeCOMPLETION: 1981 An example of queer, natural landscape is Short Mountain in Liberty, Tennessee. Formed in 1981, the sanctuary is one of the first and longest running communes for the radical faerie community, which the residents welcome year-round and at annual gatherings. Here, you’ll find landmarks named Sex Change Ridge and Fruit Loop, as well as the maypole, shown here in Joel Sternfeld’s photograph (2005). &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;IMAGE CREDITSSternfeld, Joel. May Pole, Short Mountain Sanctuary, Liberty, Tennessee. 2005, Art Institute Chicago.Opie, Catherine. Photograph of Scrat at Short Mountain. “Out of the Woods: After decades of semi-secrecy, a commune for L.G.B.T.Q. nonconformists has slowly begun to join the mainstream” by Alex Halberstadt, 6 Aug. 2015. The New York Times.&nbsp;Minteh, Sean. The Gardens. 2011. Fairyland, TN: Photos from the gayborhood.Minteh, Sean. Untitled. 2011. Fairyland, TN: Photos from the gayborhood.Minteh, Sean. Untitled. 2011. Fairyland, TN: Photos from the gayborhood.Photographer Unknown, (From left to right) Forrest Baker, Michael Ford, Jai Elliott, Bigs, and Steven DiVerde. Taken at Wolf Creek, a Radical Faerie sanctuary in Oregon.&nbsp;ca. 1970s. https://queerlandscapes.com/Versailles Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:18 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Versailles <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/05a48f885a28daba984aac657ffbb16dd8dc2b9fa68744114f7225306ced1e73/MICRON-100px.png" data-mid="128512189" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/05a48f885a28daba984aac657ffbb16dd8dc2b9fa68744114f7225306ced1e73/MICRON-100px.png" /> Gardens at Versailles TYPE: UnnaturalDESIGN: André Le Nôtre LOCATION: Versailles, FranceCOMPLETION: 1661 Versailles is iconic for its historical importance and for its striking imagery. It is part of the world’s pop cultural lexicon into the 21st Century, even being the location for the rehearsal dinner for Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s wedding in 2014. Although it is consumed by the heteronormative world without attention to its queerness, we argue that it is an example of one type of queer landscape design. The gardens of Versailles are grand, which mirrors the gaudy interior of the palace. More importantly, they are highly unnatural. In almost every section of the grounds, “natural” elements, including the trees, shrubs, and water, are abstracted to their most surreal form. The layout of the gardens, as seen from the palace, shows exactly how unnatural the gardens are. From this vantage point, there is a forced line of perspective leading out into the distance, a straight line formed with a strong hand on the land. The l’Orangerie places each perfectly trimmed tree in a neat pattern surrounding the ornately designed interior lawn. The inherently unnatural design of the gardens at Versailles is queer because being queer is “unnatural.” &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;IMAGE CREDITSPatel, Pierre. View of the palace and gardens of Versailles, seen from the avenue de Paris, 1668.Unknown. Untitled. Chateau de Versailles. Unknown. Untitled. Wallpaper Safari, 3 Jan. 2018.Zolotov, Vladislav. Versailles Formal Gardens, Paris suburbs. 2020 Fuste Raga, Jose. Untitled. “Marie Antoinette’s Private Garden at Versailles Is Being Restored” by Stefanie Waldek 15 Apr. 2020. Architectural Digest. https://queerlandscapes.com/Sugar-Beach Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:19 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Sugar-Beach <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d63ecba95012e40facf632374215f565ac6d95165985498ddb70a45eca4d042f/AMIRI-100px.png" data-mid="128516675" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/d63ecba95012e40facf632374215f565ac6d95165985498ddb70a45eca4d042f/AMIRI-100px.png" /> Sugar Beach TYPE: CampDESIGN: Claude Cormier + Associes LOCATION: Toronto (Ontario), CanadaCOMPLETION: 2010 Sugar Beach is one of Claude Cormier’s most celebrated designs. At this unassuming, formerly-industrial space along Toronto’s urban waterfront, he places an elegant beach, named for the neighboring sugar plant. It’s adjacency and context is incongruent for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a beach is an unexpected landscape typology in the downtown of the country’s largest city, which is situated alongside a cold, north-western region of Lake Ontario. Secondly, relaxing at said beach seems a bit strange as you look out across the inlet to the sugar plant, with large ships regularly traveling in and out—a contrast to the typical image one would expect while sunbathing. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; IMAGE CREDITS Martyn Weir. Untitled, Year UnknownIndustryous Photography, Untitled, 2017. Industryous Photography, Untitled, 2017. Nicola Betts, Untitled, 2011. Guillaume Paradis, Untitled, 2013. https://queerlandscapes.com/Berczy-Park Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:20 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Berczy-Park <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b3da55a5be24340064a92418629761ab576f503be01714285360ce39da8ad119/AMIRI-100px.png" data-mid="128516724" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/b3da55a5be24340064a92418629761ab576f503be01714285360ce39da8ad119/AMIRI-100px.png" /> Berczy Park TYPE: CampDESIGN: Claude Cormier + Associes LOCATION: Toronto (Ontario), CanadaCOMPLETION: 2010 At Berczy Park, Claude Cormier + Associes designed an urban pocket-park for dogs—a comedic feat. The centerpiece is the fabulous fountain, custom-designed with help from DEW Inc. It features life-sized dog-sculptures that shoot water from their mouths into the center of the fountain. The base is studded like a dog’s collar—an image that is often duplicated in queer fetish culture as well. These elements come together to form a playful, humorous, and smartly executed landscape. ALL IMAGES Industryous Photography, Untitled, 2017. https://queerlandscapes.com/Les-Boules-Rose-Pink-Balls Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:21 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Les-Boules-Rose-Pink-Balls <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/476eb76e887fb0078e3b0ff941c074b6f23d2b1ae004bdb6fbd754e85611ed2e/AMIRI-100px.png" data-mid="128516907" border="0" data-scale="85" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/476eb76e887fb0078e3b0ff941c074b6f23d2b1ae004bdb6fbd754e85611ed2e/AMIRI-100px.png" /> Les Boules Rose(Pink Balls) TYPE: CampDESIGN: Claude Cormier + Associes LOCATION: Montreal (Quebec), CanadaCOMPLETION: 2011 Les Boules Rose, or Pink Balls, is a perfect example of CC+A’s use of theatricality in their designs. Another famed project, they strung over170,000 pink plastic balls overhead of one of Montreal’s most-trafficked boulevards, Rue Saint Catherine, in the city’s Gay Village. Pink is a common color used by CC+A, which is loud and vibrant. The march of balls as you walk down the street is a type of performance, on display from the heavens above. ALL IMAGES Marc Cramer, 2012. https://queerlandscapes.com/ICAD-Garden Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:23 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/ICAD-Garden <img width="100" height="100" width_o="100" height_o="100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fe65b8e87aed0c81606872f7d00af3393759223a9e55a86a93674f0492981481/ERKI-100px.png" data-mid="128513440" border="0" data-scale="85" data-no-zoom src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/100/i/fe65b8e87aed0c81606872f7d00af3393759223a9e55a86a93674f0492981481/ERKI-100px.png" /> Garden at the Institute for Child and Adolescent Development TYPE: Feeling Over FunctionDESIGN: Claude Cormier + Associes LOCATION: Montreal (Quebec), CanadaCOMPLETION: 2011 The award-winning design for the garden at the Institute for Child and Adolescent Development by Reed Hilderbrand is an example of such landscape. Completed in 1998, this evocative design features a narrow ribbon of water that winds through the site—seemingly with a life of its own. The organization of neatly trimmed lawn as a base-plane, with mounds of softer grasses and clumps of trees and shrubs strategically scattered throughout, creates musicality as you move through. The firm describes the project as “intensively inward-oriented” and “an early […] articulation of Reed Hilderbrand’s belief that gardens can engender emotional well-being and help us understand our individual place in larger natural and cultural orders.” ALL IMAGES Reed Hilderbrand,&nbsp;Institute for Child and Adolescent Development,&nbsp;1995-1998 https://queerlandscapes.com/Natural Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:25 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Natural &nbsp; <img width="800" height="800" width_o="800" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d82c3adb25d70dd5481d4c9ef38fe26a52f3a6f6d6b8bca2377dad6cf296d31d/HERBUS-1.png" data-mid="128346724" border="0" data-scale="49" data-no-zoom src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/d82c3adb25d70dd5481d4c9ef38fe26a52f3a6f6d6b8bca2377dad6cf296d31d/HERBUS-1.png" /> Natural In Back and Forth to the Land1, Scott Morgensen describes a queer community called the “radical faeries” that regularly leave their urban lives to retreat to the countryside to experience their natural queerness. This community originated in Los Angeles in 1979 and spread to San Francisco and the rest of the nation soon after. He writes, “Radical faerie culture frames urban sexual minority cultures as inauthentic within modern fictions of rural authenticity… My reading suggests that the distinctive culture that radical faeries present arises precisely in order to incite and address more general desires for rural authenticity among urban sexual minorities.” He continues, “Inspired by gay liberation, neopagan, and back-to-the-land movements, the faerie founders argued that locating gay community in rural space would help gay men realize a common and spiritual nature.” Here, in the wild, queers can escape into their own fantasyland, where they can let their hair down, so to speak, and be their natural “homo” selves. In this case, a more natural style of landscape design is queer because of our natural queerness. 1. Morgensen, Scott. “Back and Forth to the Land: Negotiating Rural and Urban Sexuality Among the Radical Faeries.” Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World, Blackwell Publishing, pp. 143–163.&nbsp; https://queerlandscapes.com/Unnatural Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:25 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Unnatural <img width="800" height="800" width_o="800" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f30e234e9a32beab9d375806ac32adf74416521771e4ceb6cb157828ae391d2e/MICRON-1.png" data-mid="128346727" border="0" data-scale="49" data-no-zoom src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/f30e234e9a32beab9d375806ac32adf74416521771e4ceb6cb157828ae391d2e/MICRON-1.png" /> Unnatural The idea that queer = unnatural is summed up in Gayle Rubin’s charmed circle, originally illustrated in her text Thinking Sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality (1993)1. Shown below, at the center or “charmed” circle are the “Good, Normal, Natural, Blessed [Sexualities]”, which include heterosexuality among others. These sexualities are considered charmed because they have privileges that people at the margins, or in this case, at the “outer limits” of the circle, do not have. These sexualities are the “Bad, Abnormal, Unnatural, Damned [Sexualities],” including homosexuals and the non-procreative, as well as “with manufactured objects.” Of course, Rubin does not state this dichotomy as fact, but as the lived reality of social-sexual systems in place at the time, and still to this day. People who live at the margins, in this case on the outer ring, of society are considered unnatural because of their difference and divergence from the norm. Versailles is queer because it construes, manufactures, and abstracts nature, tearing it away from its ecological, native, reproductive functions—a form of divergence from the norm. Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex: Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality." Culture, Society, and Sexuality, edited by Peter Aggleton and Richard Parker, Routledge, 2006, pp. 143-178. Print. https://queerlandscapes.com/Camp Tue, 28 Dec 2021 01:59:26 +0000 Queer Landscapes https://queerlandscapes.com/Camp <img width="800" height="800" width_o="800" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ddc19c80c30712967d5d5ac25c8e72c3a7f5f9ff6e196ec6ac2c5779b124d5e8/AMIRI.png" data-mid="128346730" border="0" data-scale="49" data-no-zoom src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/ddc19c80c30712967d5d5ac25c8e72c3a7f5f9ff6e196ec6ac2c5779b124d5e8/AMIRI.png" /> Camp Ester Newton in her book Mother Camp1 describes camp as consisting of three recurrent characteristics: Incongruity Theatricality Humor She writes, “All three are intimately related to the homosexual situation and strategy. Incongruity is the subject matter of camp, theatricality its style, and humor its strategy.” Camp principles have been applied to fashion, architecture, film, art—naturally one could apply them to landscapes as well. Queer landscapes can be campy because they can situate unexpected elements into the landscape, they can create incongruities that often subvert the norm, and they can use humor. &nbsp; 1. Newton, Esther. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Print.