Queer Mapping Project

The Queer Mapping Project is a collaborative, large-scale map of queer spaces in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. Community members can add their own drawings to the map to highlight queer spaces that currently exist or should exist within the city.

This Queer Mapping Project will act as a collective mapping/brainstorming activity in which viewers/participants can walk up to a long roll hanging on the wall, and use drawing tools such as markers and pencils to draw their responses to the following questions: 1) What queer spaces and/or businesses exist in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, and how do they create inclusive experiences for queer folks? 2) What queer spaces would you like to see in Kjipuktuk/Halifax? I will be on site and adding my own drawings to the map as responses to these questions.

I have been thinking about this project since my partner and I moved to Kjipuktuk/Halifax two years ago. Since then, I’ve noticed many queer-friendly spaces and small businesses including dentists, barbers/hair salons, tattoo parlors, doctors, optometrists, cafés and bookstores. I have come across many of these businesses by word of mouth from other queer individuals. At times I have wished there was a resource that would map out all of these queer-friendly spaces. Although there are many queer spaces that exist, there is always a need for more. What would a queer-friendly gym, spa or pool look like, for example?

City infrastructures and business can be inherently gendered and biased in the ways they operate, but, they also have the potential to create a magical safe-haven when approached with care and intentionality.

The purpose of this project is to spark conversation around queer spaces within the community and to dream of Kjipuktuk/Halifax as a queer city.

Maps in their traditional sense hold legacies of oppressive, colonial systems. Maps are usually separate from personal human experience. My intention with this project is to reimagine these colonial objects used to delineate groups, and instead create an object that brings people together, imagines possibilities for the future and celebrates legacies of inclusion and care. My hope with this project is to create an object that is informed by and reflects people’s stories and experiences. The work would act as a way to document queer experience of place, to share stories and resources, and to hopefully help other queer folks navigate their way around the city.

The most recent Canadian Census shows that Nova Scotia has the largest proportion of trans and non-binary individuals out of all the provinces. As the largest urban centre within the province, how does Kjipuktuk/Halifax create a legacy of queer-friendly spaces?

This project aims to re-envision the stories and legacies held within the spaces we inhabit. What legacies are held in the spaces we inhabit and in our city’s infrastructure? How can we create spaces whose legacies is to offer caring and safer experiences for queer folks?

In November of 2022, I will be exploring similar themes as a Craft LAIR artist-in-residence at the Centre for Craft NS. My hope is to use this mapping project at Nocturne as an initial community brainstorming stage to inform the work that I create during the residency, which will take on the form of a textile map of queer spaces in Kjipuktuk/Halifax.