The home is often understood as the physical manifestation of one’s identity, a space shaped by the longing for reprieve from societal expectations. Historically defined by rigid heteronormative ideals of domestic life, the reproduction of these models concretizes a universal, and often restrictive, understanding of what a home should be. TO·BE·LONGING: Portraits of Queer Living seeks to shift this dominant social narrative, focusing on the nuanced existence of queer domesticity, belonging and resilience in spaces for self-determination.
As an immersive spatial experiment, the exhibition prompts a dissolution of fixed boundaries and an iterative rethinking of the conventional rigidities of the “home.” Engaging with the temporality of one's own identity, it seeks to demonstrate the potential for continuous change in the space one inhabits, highlighting the possibilities and nuances of preconceived spatial functions, contrasting them with the interiority one requires for vulnerability or security.
At the core of this project is an assemblage of queer memory, identity and culture. Having collected nearly 40 artifacts from community members across North America, these items seek to define what ‘queer living’ looks like today at the scale of the object. These intimate artifacts are featured against the backdrop of an adaptive possibility, illustrating how variability and embodiment reflect one’s position within a space.
Visitors are invited to engage, re-shape, and re-make the possibilities of home beyond the norm. By exploring the subversion of domesticity through the tectonics of day-to-day objects, the experience prompts reflection on one’s own position and unconscious biases in the design and creation of a home.
The project simultaneously functions as a living archive and a critical exploration of the spaces we inhabit and the chosen families we build, demonstrating that understanding queerness actively engages subjectivity as a means for spatial critique, in search for more inclusive and accessible manners of living.
Title
TO·BE·LONGING: Portraits of Queer LivingType
ExhibitionOrganizers
From
November 27, 2025 06:30 PMUntil
January 16, 2026 08:00 PMVenue
University of Waterloo School of Architecture Riverside GalleryAddress
7 Melville Street South
