Cruising Pavilion
Cruising Pavilion was an art and architecture exhibition that explored the places and practices of casual sex. It was an unofficial offering of the 16th Venice Biennale of Architecture and ran from 24 May to 1 July, 2018. Between 22 February and 7 April 2019, the second edition opened at Ludlow 38 in New York City. In late 2019, the final chapter of the project opened at ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, in Stockholm and ran from 20 September to 10 November, 2019. Exhibition. The exhibit in Venice sought to depict places where gay men  historically looked for casual sex and hookups, including "non-conventional venues such as parking lots, parks, bathroom stalls, and dark rooms." The design of the exhibition included glory holes, a semblance of dark rooms, and aspects seeking to demonstrate aspects of hooking-up including narrow stairs and multiple levels. The show presented ways LGBT people "have shaped space and the ways in which architecture has therefore in turn shaped space for them." Cruising as a practice and the spaces in which it happens were explored and made safe in the exhibition, all while challenging the heteronormativity commonly expressed in the  Venice Biennale of Architecture itself. This is especially dramatic given the implications of online and dating apps such as Grindr. The exhibition in New York explored the different directions by which cruising practices have evolved. The exhibition in Stockholm, which took place in a national gallery, explored the intersection of cruising and architectural environments. According to critic Michael Bullock, "in a little less than two years, [Cruising Pavilion] has gone from a renegade operation to an institutionalized project shown in a national museum, though ironically it found its most distinguished venue in a city of 2.4 million people with only  one official gay bar."