Unseen at Night is one of the projects being funded by this year's Young Urbanists Small Grants Scheme, by Amelia Powell and Kirsty Watt, aiming to tackle the lack of inclusive, safe and accessible urban spaces for queer people to celebrate femme art and music whilst experiencing the power of queer joy.

The project aims to demonstrate the opportunities of queer night spaces that encompass the principles upon which queer communities are centred, facilitating a collaboration of queer and femme designers within Scotland to do so.

The project initiates dialogue across architecture and design industries of what queerness and femme spaces can be through a collaboration between HerCollective and Femmergy  to provide a provocation.

The brief is based on the experience of Femmergy as well as feedback from their attendees through social media, and aims to encourage individual and collective representations of queer joy. Areas for improved safety, inclusivity and accessibility within queer spaces should be spotlighted.

Archifringe is a festival running in Scotland that invites designers and researchers to participate in its Open Programme, to encourage discussion around the socio-political impact of architecture and design. 

HerCollective is the umbrella term for an ongoing collaboration between Kirsty Watt and Amelia Powell on architecture and urban planning projects that centre on gender equity. 

Femmergy is a queer club night and DJ collective in Edinburgh, raising money for charity and spotlighting queer creatives. 

What should a queer / femme night be? What should it have? 

The brief is centred on three primary areas:

Safety
Providing safeguarding measures for people to look after each other, feel safe and able to ask for help if needed. 

Inclusivity
An understanding that queer night spaces must extend past the queer masc experience and be fully inclusive in order to achieve what queerness is grounded in. 

Accessibility
Utilising the opportunity of the space to ensure accessibility to people with alternative requirements in a world that does not often offer it. 

Please download this PDF for full guidance on this brief.

Proposal Requirements 

We would suggest that the output is culminated into a single image that fit the requirement to be printed at A2 at 300dpi, preferably portrait. However, alternative mediums will be considered, as well as the possibility of having a magnitude of images where appropriate. 

Individual contributors should be comfortable with their output being catalogued in an accompanying zine that will be available for a period after the exhibition. 

Deadline: Monday 24 April 2023

Please send a short proposal (approx 250 words), as well as any existing experience or previous works, and relevant website links or social media handles. 

Contact details 

All Expressions of Interest should go to: 

Kirsty Watt / Amelia Powell
[email protected]

The Academy of Urbanism (Number 2) Limited is a not-for-profit organisation limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales 0595604, 11c Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 IXE, United Kingdom.
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