Like the culverted waters of the Farset and the Poddle, queerness flows through us by way of subterranean channels – dripping from our bodies in grapefruit perspiration, clinging to the clothes we’re sometimes afraid to wear, and pooling in once-a-month warehouse parties and on damp morning park grass. This project emerges out of a desire to render that queerness visible, to be seen and recognized on our own terms rather than surveilled and looked upon as an interloper in the places we call home.

As a native Belfaster and an adopted Dubliner, our collaboration attempts to embed our lived experience in urban landscapes that can be impermeable and at times hostile to the queer body. GPS satellites, used by corporations and governments to surveil movement patterns, allowed us to record digital tracings along our daily routes. LIDAR sensors, which model both terrain and biometrics, capture clouds of points that flow between a representation of a body and a landscape. Embedding these digital traces among an assemblage of historical maps ranging from 1685 until 1838 asserts our own role in co-creating the urban fabrics of Dublin and Belfast, not out of any sense of ownership or mastery, but simply by being in and moving through space.

Gabriel Coleman holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Before coming to Trinity, they spent time farming organic vegetables in the United States and Japan, and working with environmental nonprofits like the Natural Resources Defense Council, GrowNYC, and Slow Food USA. Gabriel is an avid runner, bike-commuter, cook, and musician and they write a weekly column for the newsletter Digestable (digestable.substack.com). They are interested in how perceptions and concepts of nature and environment influence and are influenced by systems of food and agriculture, human migration, and industrialisation.

Ben Malcolmson (b.1999) is a visual artist born and based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ben works within the parameters of photography, video and sculpture exploring alternative photographic processes with relation to one’s land and identity. His practice further deals with the communication of the landscape, looking at the familiar and psychological complexities of the self with performative-based elements as an undertone. He is a recent graduate from Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, graduating with a First Class Honours in Bachelor’s of Photography with Video (2021), his previous studies include undertaking his Erasmus studies (2019-20) at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in Bachelor’s of Photography. In 2019, Ben was awarded to be a part of Making Marks by the Arab British Centre, funded by the British Council Kuwait. Making Marks, explored the impact of international working on emerging artists. Ben’s residency to Kuwait was one stage in the Making Marks project. Over several months, Ben worked with Belfast Exposed Gallery on a body of work titled Murmur which was exhibited in the gallery as a solo show during February 2020.

Historical maps included:

The Ground plott of Belfast with ye cittadel designed on the strand. Phillips, Thomas, 1685. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, Department of Manuscripts.

A draught of ye Island of Magee: the river of Belfast, Carrickfergus, and the coast as farr [sic] as ye Coplan [Copeland] Islands. Phillips, Thomas, 1685. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, Department of Manuscripts.

Atlas to accompany 2d report of the Railway Commissioners Ireland. Larcom, Thomas A, 1838. Courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.

An actual survey of the County of Dublin. Rocque, John. Courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.

Plans of the principal towns, forts and harbours in Ireland. Harrington, James, 1784. Courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.

John Questebrone, maps. Questebrone, John, 1722. Courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.