The research

Two years of artistic research on queer safety.

Queer Safer Spaces: Why & How

I clearly remember being refused entry to a club with my best gay friend, and my trans friend being asked what she had "down there" while out. These experiences taught me the difference between a place where I was welcome, a place where I was merely tolerated, and a place where I faced discrimination. I wondered what queer safety really means and wanted to make it tangible and, above all, action-oriented.

For two years, I worked on answering this question: how can space holders help design queer safer spaces?

The method: The Queer Library

The Queer Library is a visual, participatory research method. I photographed over fifty queer individuals at a location of their choice and asked each the same five questions about why they chose that place, what makes a space safer for them, and what they wish cisgender/heterosexual people would understand. I never shared the questions in advance; I wanted spontaneous, unfiltered answers.

Participants came from more than twenty countries, aged between 19 and 79, photographing themselves in parks, cafés, community centers, and homes in Amsterdam, as well as Rotterdam, Utrecht, Berlin, and beyond. I also spoke with four queer experts: choreographer and somatic therapist Zahira Mous, artist/curator Jordi Ariza Gallego, kink organizer Ari Ochoa, and neuroarchitect Fiona Beenkens.

Three key insights

My conversations with both the participants of the Queer Library and the experts revealed three key insights.

1. There is no average queer person.
Everyone experiences safety differently, shaped by age, ethnicity, migration background, neurodiversity, and more.
2. Safety has both an emotional and spatial dimension.
Emotional safety relates to what happens in your body as you enter a space: belonging, trust, being yourself without explanation. Spatial safety concerns what the environment communicates through signage, symbolism, layout, lighting, and sound. Both are inseparable, but by addressing them separately, you can design with more intention.
3. Queer safety is an ongoing practice, not a final destination.
As Jordi said: "A safe place does not exist. What we try to do is create a safer place." That subtle difference, safe versus safer, is at the heart of the entire toolkit and my approach. It's not about guarantees, but a commitment to working toward safety every day.

The research

Two years of artistic research on queer safety.

Queer Safer Spaces: Why & How

The method: The Queer Library

Three key insights

1. There is no average queer person.

2. Safety has both an emotional and spatial dimension.

3. Queer safety is an ongoing practice, not a final destination.

From insight to design: how the tools were created

This is where the research becomes concrete. Each of the six tools directly stems from a specific insight from my conversations. These insights all fall under the three core ideas but are more specific: they point to a concrete problem and thus to a specific tool.