Queeries: On Workshop 🐉
Here there be dragons
I promised a newsletter issue going into detail about the Q:DREAM workshops I’ve been holding, but resting and hibernating through the deep of winter have taken priority. After all, Rapid Eye Movement, the phase of sleep in which our heart rate speed up and we “see” images that turn into our dreams, is a vital part of the body healing itself.
As we enter solar spring in the northern hemisphere, the time of year when daylight increases the fastest; usher in the Year of the Wood Dragon 🐉 with the Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year) to Asian-Americans, 春節 (Spring Festival) to folks in China, and many other names throughout other Asian nations; and accept that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow on Groundhog Day, I emerge with a bit of show-and-tell about the ongoing workshops (a little more show than tell ;)
At the start of the workshop, folks introduce themselves through sharing where they currently reside, and where “home” was for them growing up. Yes, we jump right into deep, potentially murky waters to dredge up memories of the past. It’s part icebreaker, part acknowledgement that we are people who come from different places, have lived many lives, and are present in the room to share with each other. I have learned so much about people I’d just met simply through the way that they introduce themselves with this prompt.
Then, to re-ground ourselves in the workshop at hand, I give a selectively abbreviated overview of housing in the United States of America, its connection to heteronormative citizenship, and the ways that queer domestic life has resisted negative portrayals and found ways to survive despite societal shunning. 🐉
Then we get into the real work—an exercise that I call “Equitable and Mad Libs,” which are like Mad Libs, but more structured / less random / dreamy to the max. The room gets quiet while people’s brains buzz. Can you imagine reading, “I dream of living in (place)” sparking infinite possibilities in just one person’s mind—and then multiply that times five, or ten? Juices flowing, air electric. The questions get more and more specific about this dream until you are lucidly imagining how to actually get there, how to manifest this vision you’ve written down into reality.
Then, we use collage to represent the words, ideas, and feelings that came up. We image the dream, creating a Postcard from the Future 🐉 (Click or tap the first image from Instagram [or here!] and then swipe left to see an example of a postcard and its corresponding Equitable and Mad Lib.)
These dreams of queer “homes” in collage and written forms are added to the gallery walls, so that the notion of “home” is made queer in real time. Expressions of queer futurity are displayed as part of the exhibition.
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The worlds we’ve been dreaming up, collectively, are similar to the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. In mythology, the Dragon 🐉 is a shapeshifter, possessing the physical attributes of the other creatures of the zodiac—including the face and horns of the Ox 🐂, the body of a Snake 🐍, claws and teeth of a Tiger 🐅, and the belly of the Rabbit 🐇—but the Dragon’s constant is its unwavering personality. Similarly, the collages are birthed out of the workshop are mash-ups of windows, walls, tiles, textures, landscapes, and stickers that made sense on their own, but form a completely different narrative when combined. It is a reminder that queerness can work with what exists to create spaces that are radically different than the here-and now, an invitation to dream beyond our limits, and a call to question business as usual, whether in architecture or in society.
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Thus far there have been two in-person workshops, and I am eternally grateful to those who have shown up and trusted me & the process.
The next one, scheduled for Wednesday, February 21, 2024, 6-8pm Eastern, will be held virtually. Brush up on your Miro Board skills, y’all!
You don’t have to live in New York City to participate in the virtual workshop—that’s the whole point of making it online :) Register for the workshop here!
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Once again, thank you for reading this newsletter. It really would not exist without you.
I hope these words inspire in some way, shape, or form.
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Until next time, with the roar of a Dragon,
A.L.