The Architecture of Sex symposium explores some of the many questions and ambiguities in the work Cruising Gezi Park (2021) by Kübra Uzun and Simon(e) van Saarloos. Topics range from ableist architecture and surveillance technologies, to sexual communication and disobedience in the city.

In the audio installation Uzun and Van Saarloos take a walk through Gezi Park, Istanbul. Since the protests in 2013, the park is continuously surrounded by police and few dark spots are left, because trees and shrubs are cut. You can listen to Kübra’s memories, visiting the park as a teenage boy for sex, in the exhibition Refresh Amsterdam and online. In the audio installation, Kübra’s voice interweaves with the sounds of Amsterdam’s Oosterpark, of trees and shrubs being trimmed and cut, which is also lit up by an increasing amount of street lights. Similarly to Istanbul, these “cleaning” measures are portrayed as protection for gay cruisers and white women. The audio installation’s fake grass marks the violence of gentrification, as well as celebrating the queer and drag appreciation of artificial aesthetics. The red light in the installation both refers to the color of nationalism in Turkey and the increasingly gentrified Red-Light district in Amsterdam.

With Kübra Uzun, Jeanette Chedda, Tracian Meikle, Benjamin Asante, René Boer, Kevin Gotkin and Sophie Lewis.

The symposium will be broadcasted on June 10th at 20:00 and will remain freely accessible online. The symposium will be in English and will be subtitled in English. If you have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, please send an email to publieksprogramma@amsterdammuseum.nl 

*The symposium’s title is inspired by Paul B. Preciado’s essay “The Architecture of Sex” (2018), published in The Funambulist. Previously, Preciado presented the text during the 2017 Brenno Premsela Lecture at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Preciado gave permission for the use of his essay title for this symposium.

Made possible by the support of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK) and DutchCulture