PrideScapes Summer 2021
Celebrating Pride June 2021 with OLIN Labs!
To kick off the PrideScapes initiative, OLIN Labs hosted a virtual three-part panel series to coincide with Pride month. These panels invited critical conversations between landscape architects, designers, urban planners, artists, and historic preservationists working on LGBTQ+ discourse and projects related to the increased representation and visibility of LGBTQ+ spaces in the built environment.
Discussion topics included Landscapes & Pandemics: The Inequities of AIDS & COVID-19, Preserving & Interpreting LGBTQ+ Landscapes: Making an Invisible History Visible, and LGBTQ+ Memorials: Design and Remembrance in the Landscape. More information about the panelists and each topic can be found below.
Landscapes & Pandemics: The Inequities of AIDS & COVID-19
June 3rd, 2021 6:00 - 7:30pm EDT
COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black and Latinx people, as well as LGBTQ+ people, many who are living at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities. Over the past year, several comparisons have been made between the rise of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the US in the 80s and 90s and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Both diseases have disproportionately affected vulnerable communities, particularly people of color. Both have been exacerbated by public health responses from government leaders, and both are still ongoing.
This panel discussion explores how these two pandemics are spatialized in the landscape and how neighborhood environments and access to resources can affect health outcomes. Where in our cities are these disparities most seen? How do they shape our landscapes? How as designers can we create spaces that positively contribute and facilitate human health and well-being? We will hear from leading academics and activists and learn what these pandemics mean for communities across the US.
Presenters
René Esparza, Assistant Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St Louis
Derrick Matthews, Assistant Professor of Health Behavior at UNC
Curtis Winkle, PhD, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at University of Illinois at Chicago
Melinda Hunt, Founding Director & President (2020-2022) of the Hart Island Project
Preserving & Interpreting LGBTQ+ Landscapes: Making an Invisible History Visible
June 10th, 2021 6:00 - 7:30pm EDT
LGBTQ+ spaces have largely gone undocumented in local, state and federal cultural resource management programs across the US. In many cities, LGBTQ+ historic sites, their stories, and memories remain unknown and untold. However, place and identity are so closely linked. Having physical echoes of LGBTQ+ identities in the built environment is incredibly important and can help LGBTQ+ people connect with their own identity, reinforce a sense of belonging, or proudly acknowledge that LGBTQ+ people have always existed in these spaces. In recent years there has been a push from professionals, academics, and activists to help tell these LGBTQ+ stories, underscore the value of preserving these sites, and increase the overall visibility of these spaces across the US.
This panel discussion focuses on LGBTQ+ history(ies), and their preservation and interpretation in order to educate designers, planners and others about current projects and how our field can amplify and uplift LGBTQ+ voices, histories, and practitioners. We will review case studies from across the US, including from New York, San Francisco, and the National Park Service. Attendees will be introduced to LGBTQ+ landscapes and learn the crucial importance of preserving LGBTQ+ spaces and imagining new futures for these culturally significant landscapes.
Presenters
Ken Lustbader, Co-Founder and Co-Director of NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
Aria Sa’id, Co-Founder & Executive Director of the Transgender District
Sylvea Hollis PhD, Assistant Professor of African American and African History at Montgomery College
Gail Dubrow, Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Minnesota
LGBTQ+ Memorials: Design and Remembrance in the Landscape
June 17th, 2021 6:00 - 7:30pm EDT
Public memorials help us remember and keep alive past events, stories, and loss. Only recently are LGBTQ+ histories, spaces, and places being honored and remembered in the landscape. During the HIV/AIDS crisis the LGBTQ+ community suffered incredible, significant loss. In cities such as NYC and San Francisco, stories of LGBTQ+ community, those who survived, and those we have lost deserve to be honored and remembered. How do LGBTQ+ people recall and share history? What is the role of place in remembering LGBTQ+ history? This panel discussion is focused on the role and importance of the act of remembering and healing, particularly in situ.
Attendees will be introduced to LGBTQ+ memorials and placemaking and learn the role of telling untold LGBTQ+ histories and memorializing culturally significant sites. Our speakers will discuss how we currently memorialize LGBTQ+ history, and ideas for properly remembering and honoring the LGBTQ+ community into the future. Case studies such as the NYC AIDS Memorial, completed in 2016, honoring those lost during the HIV/AIDS crisis will be discussed, as well as other place-based and living memorials.
Presenters
Jha D Williams, MASS Design Group (Senior Associate, SpaceMaker for the LGBTQ+ communities of color, Gun Violence Memorial Project, Pulse Memorial Competition)
Manisha Kaul, Design Workshop (Associate & Office Director)
Lily Lim, Studio ai (Principal, Architect RA)
Mateo Paiva, Studio ai (Principal, Architect RA)
