'The Picture in my Head is my Reward'* The Mental Mapping of a Queer Urban Perspective

Abstract

Urban space is a productive force reflecting and affecting human interaction both with other humans and with their environment (Lefebvre). Traditionally the urban scheme is envisioned to control and order ‘nature’ and social interaction, and to sustain the power of a dominant group (Foucault). Yet due to the complexity of the post-capitalist city, this urban realm is not a smooth surface. Sometimes temporary cracks form, where space is opened up for creating alternative orderings (Hetherington 40). Because of their ambivalence, these spaces do not clearly belong to anyone, and can easily be claimed. It is this type of place that queers and other minority groups have often repurposed and appropriated to their needs. With our photographs we hope to visualize these fragments in the urban environment, where the imposed order suddenly stops, and where organic (over-) growth takes over. Here nature reclaims temporarily unused urban space and thus disrupts the idea of a human-constructed and human-controlled landscape and the idea of ‘city’ in a dualistic relation with ‘nature.’ In this sense, our photographs represent a queer version of urban typologies like ‘park’ or ‘garden’.