Tomiwa Folorunso
Edited by Veronica Vivi
Illustration by Aaliyah Oshodi
‘Loving another person and that person loving me back – I do not see how that is a bad thing’ (Mohammed, Nagarajan and Aliyu 46).
Interview by Toby Sharpe
Editing by Abigail Eardley and Toby Sharpe
Could you start by explaining what Queering the Map does – and why you think it’s important?
Queering the Map is a community-generated mapping project, which geo-locates queer memories, histories, and experiences in relation to physical space using an online platform. Part of the idea is to open up the question of what constitutes queer space, or even more basically, what constitutes queerness. So, it’s a very open call in terms of submissions: whatever counts for the person submitting counts to the project and the process of queering space.
In the context of queer theory, there’s value in trying to unsettle what queer identity means. Queering the Map offers the opportunity for people to define what queerness means for them on their own terms, adding nuance to this term which can be endlessly changed and expanded – moving beyond a singular understanding of queerness, towards a collective understanding.
Jessie Widner
Editing by Maria Elena Torres-Quevedo
Art: ‘Mäda Primavesi’ by Gustav Klimt
How does one write about a novel that has already been prefaced by T.S Eliot and Jeannette Winterson? A novel described so perfectly as, “It is like drinking wine with a pearl dissolving in the glass. You have taken in more than you know, and it will go on doing its work. From now on a part of you is pearl-lined,” (Winterson). Both were fascinated with the dark poetics of the novel, the quality and rhythm of its language, and its immersive atmosphere.
