Queer O'Clock
Queer evidence, ruminations on time travel and patience in design
On my right thigh, I have a giant tattoo. It is the poem “Legacy” by Pat Parker. Pat Parker (a poet, an arguable a comedian) from the 1960’s was a long time friend of queer icon Audre Lorde. For years they wrote letters to each other than can be found in the book Sister Love. The poem legacy reads,
““I give you / a legacy / of doers / of people who take risks / to chisel the crack wider / Take the strength that you may / wage a long battle. / Take the pride that you can / never stand small. / Take the rage that you can / never settle for less.”
I came across this poem in the moments after I left my ex-partner, I felt my indignation affirmed and my rage courted. It’s a talisman that I’ve always held closely as a reminder to keep up the righteous fights in my life - and a tie between the personal and the political.
Finding this poem was also meaningful because it was and still is evidence of the deep love, often exhibited between people who have shared struggle.
Looking into the past this way, the poem functions as a time machine. It also will always be a site/tool for me to hold my past, sit in my present and lean towards a future state of myself that is more emotional fortified.
This toggling, or movement between past, present and future – is palpable in queer design. It is one of the many ways that design is tran(sitory).
Perhaps that is one of the things that is hardest in queer(ed) design. Navigating transitions between time & space AND knowledge & learning require collective patience.
I find the cultivation of collective patience to be a significant challenge as a facilitator - because you’re navigating differences in urgency stemming from diverse positionality. Sometime an answer that can be discovered through a process - doesn’t take into account acute harm or violence being experienced by some participants and not others.
Sometimes the pace of a change happens because there is a tug of enthusiasm from one stakeholder that is louder than another community part’s reticence.
How might we insert opportunities for temporal agency in the design process? How can we encourage waiting – while also respecting the need to move with haste?
As always, in thought,
Sloan Leo