The history of The London Apprentice of Old Street is spread across the archive halls of London. Now a light, open space the original bar is one of the only reminders of the building’s extensive history. The recent Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition ‘Queer Spaces, London: 1980s–Today’, which Ben co-curated, featured case studies, archives and data from this research.The London Apprentice has been standing at 333 Old Street for over a century. Ben is co-editor of Sexuality and Gender at Home: Experience, Politics, Transgression (Bloomsbury, 2017), Engaged Urbanism: Cities and Methodologies (IB Tauris, 2016) and Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination (IB Tauris, 2007), and founding co-editor of Urban Pamphleteer (2013-).īen’s recent research on LGBTQ+ night spaces in London, including the report LGBTQ+ Cultural Infrastructure in London: Night Venues, 2006-present (2017), co-authored with Lo Marshall, have widely influenced recent policy and activism in London. He is the author of Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture (2013), which won the 2014 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Foundation Award. Images on offīen Campkin is Professor of History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at The Bartlett School of Architecture and Co-Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory. It will analyze the cultural heritage embedded in specific buildings, interiors, venues and events associated with migrant LGBTQ+ minorities, offering insights on the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion to inform policies that might challenge prejudices and foster integration. women, people with trans and non-binary identities, queer and trans people of colour). It will consider the distinct qualities of formal licensed premises alongside transitory and long running events that move between venues, serving groups who face barriers to inclusion in mainstream commercial night-scenes (e.g. This research adds to the limited number of studies of migrant LGBTQ+ communities in Europe new qualitative and empirical evidence on the socio-cultural value of nightlife venues for those communities and to public life more broadly. A reported fall of LGBTQ+ night venues (58% over the past decade) due in large part to real estate pressures has resulted in specific policy innovations and media narratives that the researchers will study, alongside the production, operation, cultural and intercultural significance of LGBTQ+ migrants’ night spaces and narratives. London’s Mayor and recently appointed Night Czar have prioritized the night-time economy and support for LGBTQ+ venues, recognizing the value of these spaces to engender belonging and social integration within and across communities with distinct forms of heritage. London is the focus because of its international profile as city with a large and diverse LGBTQ+ population, because of its histories of colonialism and migration, and because of the significant number of night-time venues and events oriented towards groups with specific national and ethnic identities. This project studies night-spaces, cultures and narratives of migrant LGBTQ+ communities in London (1980s-present). These cases are considered in relation to policies and practices on heritage, the night-time economy and cultural infrastructure, given the increasing focus on these areas since the mid-2010s.Working with partners we identify and gather evidence on case studies, seeking to understand why and how particular spaces have been created or appropriate as night spaces, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in and around them.We consider the distinct qualities and public value of licensed premises (bars, pubs, clubs) alongside other formal and informal, transitory and long-running events that move between venues.We examine the inter-relationships between queer subjectivities and ‘migrant orientations’ (Ahmed, 2006).
Our research looks into the socio-cultural value of nightlife venues and events for LGBTQ+ communities, focusing on spaces oriented around migrant identities and histories.Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick.Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.University of Leiden University of Leiden.