What defines queer design? Earlier this summer, Manhattan’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a space dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ history, partnered with heritage paint brand Farrow & Ball to explore the concept. The queerization of design is nothing new, of course, but the increased visibility of these forms is cause for celebration. In the decades since the museum’s founding, which dates back to a 1969 exhibition hosted by its founders in a SoHo loft, demand and interest in the work of queer designers has never been stronger.
To close out Pride month, multimedia artist and designer Liz Collins, fashion designer Christopher John Rogers, Leslie-Lohman CEO Alyssa Nitchun, and Elle Decor editor-in-chief Asad Syrkett gathered at the museum for a conversation about queerness and design. Following the conversation, Nitchun and Collins, who also curated the exhibition “Design Dysphoria,” which took place in a Bushwick studio during the NYCxDESIGN festival this year, shared their thoughts on what defines queer design. interior design.
Interior Design: What prompted the museum to host a conversation on queer design right now?
Alyssa Nitchun: Our friend Jesse Smiley introduced us to Farrow & Ball to redesign our offices – it was a love match. Along with them came queer designers and queer-led design brands to support us. That led to some fascinating conversations and we thought it would be valuable to bring some of the people involved together to have a public conversation about the notion of queer design.
ID: What do you think are some outstanding examples of how queer narratives are reflected in design?
AN: If a designer is queer, I would argue that a kind of queerness is reflected in their work because of their personal experience of carrying that identity in the world. Queerness functions as a political and ideological framework alongside sexuality, gender, and desire, and these intersections play out in design. Queerness is in the eye of the beholder.
ID: The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art offers an important insight into lesser-known aspects of queer history. What role does design play in this?
AN: Working in a queer art museum, I am all too often reminded of how much queer history is marked by omissions and erasures. Leslie-Lohman offers a story—both from the past and the history we write daily—of queer creativity in action. Design meets at the intersection of creativity and functionality, offering us a different way of engaging and perceiving, an opportunity to queer the space. In the past, we have created several design-focused exhibitions. We were the original institution of the “Queer Threads” exhibition, whose catalogue was edited and designed by Todd Oldham; the exhibition toured for 10 years. The exhibition featured 24 artists from around the world using thread-based craft materials and techniques to explore the diversity of queer experiences. In the “On Our Backs” exhibition, the installation included art in a peepshow architecture and a bedroom, design and desire inextricably linked. And the exhibition “Omniscient” featured a carpet by Liz Collins.
ID: In recent years I have heard artists and designers talk about the “queerization of design,” in the sense of mixing media and breaking down binary concepts. Do you think your work reflects this idea and if so, in what ways?
Liz Collins: I work fluidly between art and design in a feedback loop, always fighting against the compartmentalization of the two fields. The fabrics I design and produce with textile mills are a bridge, serving as both upholstery and a basic canvas for my paintings. I create environments that function as social space in queer contexts with queer collaborators, using strategies of interior design to create worlds that convey a sense of comfort, joy and celebration of queer community and life as we know and want it to be.
Discover queer designs featured in “Design Dysphoria,” co-curated by Liz Collins and presented at Studio S II in Bushwick, Brooklyn
