Queering The Map by Lucas LaRochelle

Queering the Map is a community generated counter-mapping project that locates queer moments, memories, and histories in relation to physical space. As queer life becomes increasingly less centered around specific neighborhoods and the buildings within them, notions of ‘queer space’ become more abstract and less tied to concrete geographical locations. The intent of Queering the Map is to collectively document the spaces that hold queer memory, from park benches to parking garages—to mark moments of queerness wherever they occur.

The project intends to leave ‘queerness’ open to endless interpretation. From direct action activism to conversations expressing gender pronouns, from feelings of isolation to moments of rapturous love,Queering the Map functions as a living archive of queer experience. The mapping out of concrete queer histories is at the core of the project, and elders of the queer community are particularly encouraged to add moments and places of historical significance to the map in order to preserve our collective history—one that is always at risk of erasure. Through mapping these ephemeral moments, Queering the Map aims to create a web of queerness that shows the ways in which we as a community are intimately connected.

In a moment of serious political turmoil, it is more pertinent than ever that minoritarian communities merge along lines of commonality, so that we may better resist the forces that work against us. By mapping out queer experience in all of its permutations, Queering the Map aims to commemorate the work we have done as a community, as well as make clear the work we still have left to do. By merging the subjective experience into the collective, Queering the Map works to create a feeling of solidarity across difference and across borders.