A fantasized archeology of gay safe spaces in western Europe through real and imaginary archives (in progress)
This project stems from the gradual disappearance of gay and, more broadly, LGBT meeting and social spaces in Europe, partly because society and public spaces are becoming more inclusive. However, many of these places are also facing economic difficulties due to the gentrification of city centers and the rise of dating apps.
These spaces represent a specific culture with aesthetics, codes, languages, and stories with which I grew up and which shaped my development. They are pillars of the LGBT history and still serve as the only public ‘safe spaces’ in many cities.
These ambivalent places are at once spaces of desire, emancipation and disappointment, both communal and commercial venues, protective and oppressive.
I began to build up an archive by photographing their facades, bar interiors, meeting places in parks or wooded areas, details and objects.
Gradually, I felt the urge to go back in time.
Because this phenomenon of disappearance is not new. These spaces have always been extremely precarious, almost invisible in mainstream history, in art history or in popular narratives, with the notable exception of judicial history.
And it seemed right to me to recreate traces of these places of which nothing remains, or which could never have existed.
I use AI as a tool to fantasize these forgotten or prevented places.
AI allows me to make the invisible visible, to pay homage to shadowy areas of history. But it also helps me to invent other possible pasts, beyond a system of generalized repression.
Collection of zines