s.e. eisterer

S.E. Eisterer, ed.
𝙸𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚢𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙾𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙰𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚀𝚞𝚎𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚘𝚛𝚢 In 1991, poet, author, and professor June Jordan encouraged radical alterations of the built environment as crucial to “A New Politics of Sexuality,” the title of her address to the Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Student Association at Stanford University. She elicited the attendees to conceive what a space would look like in which they could live without terror, “in the daylight of our existence.” This book takes up Jordan’s premise to work against normative ideas about gender and sexuality through environmental transformation. It traces feminist and LGBTQIA+ efforts for more just spaces for housing, health care, and artistic production. Edited by S.E. Eisterer (@s.e.eisterer ) Contributions by Candace Borders, Molly M. Brandt, S.E. Eisterer, Ladi’Sasha Jones (@ladi.sasha ), Davy Knittle, Torsten Lange (@torstenlange79 ), M.C. Overholt (@mc_overholt ), Germán Pallares-Avitia (@gp_arq ), Malcolm Rio (@rio.archi ), Catherine George Weilein Designed by Nadine Wüthrich (@nadine_wuethrich_ ), Reinhard Schmidt (@reinhard_schmidt_ ), #UrsHofer 2025. 14.5 × 22.5 cm, softcover 288 pages, 112 illustrations ISBN 978-3-85676-475-3 Text in English

June Jordan understood domestic space as a political form. Across decades of writing and image-making, she imagined interiors that shelter, sustain, and resist the spatial production of unfreedom—holding race, gender, and class together as lived, material conditions.

June Jordan, 1992, as cited in S.E. Eisterer, Introduction: In the Daylight of Our Existence, p. 12

From our backlist 𝙸𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚢𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙾𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 Normative ideas about gender and sexuality have been inscribed into the built environment through architecture and urban planning. In the 20th century, feminist and LGBTQIA+ groups started conceiving coalitional spaces against such norms. Edited by @s.e.eisterer in 2025 Contributions by Candace Borders, Molly M. Brandt, S.E. Eisterer, @ladi.sasha , Davy Knittle, @torstenlange79 , @mc_overholt , @gp_arq , @rio.archi , Catherine George Weilein Image captions: 𝟭: Chantal Regnault, Kenny Chanel and Bobby Revlon, House of Milan Ball, Gay Community Center, West 13th Street, New York City, 1990. © Chantal Regnault 𝟮: Teresa Margolles, Jacqueline, Pista de Baile del club „Centro“ (Jacqueline, dance floor from the club „Centro“), 2022. Inkjet print, 120 × 180 cm. © 2024 Teresa Margolles. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY 𝟯: Smith College Special Collections, Women’s Health Specialists of California records, Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00790, Box 14 𝟰: „Rent Strike Leader,“ St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Photograph: Paul Ockrassa, April 4, 1969. Courtesy University of Missouri St. Louis Mercantile Library, Globe Democrat Clippings M-112, Folder: King, Jean Mrs.; Darst Housing Mgr. 1975 𝟱: Left: The Body Politic 3 no. 7, Winter 1973, cover. © Pink Triangle Press Right: The Body Politic 3 no. 7, Winter 1973, 18. © Pink Triangle Press Background: Ground floor gallery spaces, 4 Kensington Avenue, Toronto, circa April 1975. York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, Centre for Art and Communication Fonds, ASC41886, ASC41889 𝟲: June Jordan, corrections of manuscript, His Own Where, 1970, page 78. © Jordan Literary Trust. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, MC513, BOX 47, FOLDER #6, (Writings. Books – Juvenile – contains intermediate draft), page 78 © Christopher D. Meyer, 2007. Reprinted by permission of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency

New on the shelf — In the Daylight of Our Existence, edited by S.E. Eisterer. Taking its title from a moment in June Jordan’s 1991 address calling for radical transformations of the spaces we inhabit, this volume explores what it means to imagine, design, and historicize environments where queer life, care, and community can flourish without fear. Through essays, archival materials, poems, and visual documents, the book traces feminist, trans, and queer architectural histories and methods of resistance, refusal, and collective habitation across cities from New York to the Mexican borderlands. A generous, generative contribution to thinking about space, embodiment, and communal life in ways that push beyond normative structures — and a reminder that transformation begins with what we can envisage together. It features Malcolm Rio, M.C. Overholt, Candace Borders, Germán Pallares-Avitia, Torsten Lange, Davy Knittle, as well as Ladi’Sasha Jones, Molly M. Brandt, and Catherine George Weilein #InTheDaylightOfOurExistence #gtaedition Image: Rio, Malcom. “Architecture Is Burning: An Urbanism of Queer Kinship in New York Ballroom Culture.” In In the Daylight of Our Existence: Architectural History and the Promise of Queer Theory, edited by S.E. Eisterer. Zurich: gta Verlag, 2025, 45–87.

Curated by Sophie Goltz, Karolina Radenkovic, and Niklas Koschel, Wild ThinX is a symposium and exhibition that investigates non-normative modes of living in Austria and beyond. The accompanying exhibition at Galerie 5020 is based on my research on the Prenning Circle. On May 17 both, Princeton Presidential Post-Doctoral Fellow Sergio Villanueva Preston and I will present our work on queer and polyamorous homes and families in the symposium.

Over the last three days I spent time with some of my favorite people in the world and got to think with them about all the possible futures that still lie ahead of us. Huge congratulations to M.C. Overholt and Steven Vider on their exhibition on lesbian feminist architect Phylis Birkby, whose fantasies sparked new investigations. Chong Gu and Audrey Tseng de Melo Fischer produced an installation of Lisa‘s dream home in Manhattan and Qianer Zhu and Giacomo Rossi gave two workshops on queer home making in migration. Thank you to the undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. Students from Princeton who came out as well as the many colleagues. This was a wonderful weekend.

Inspiring evening with a workshop by Alex Auris in House of Differences organized by Qianer Zhu and Giacomo Rossi.

An archival session with Torsten Lange at Sozialarchiv Zürich and Verein Schwulengeschichte Schweiz. I got to talk about materials I really care about including Swiss artist and resistance fighter Alis Guggenheim’s diaries.

A lovely event at Shedhalle organized by Janus Lafontaine Carboni.

Queer(y)ing Home and Diaspora, next week in Zurich

One of the beautiful things about this year is to spend time with friends who I can‘t always see in the US. I am so excited for the architecture class by Maya Alam and Daniele Profeta at the International Summer Academy which brings @ap_practice to Salzburg. #internationalsummeracademysalzburg #architecture #summer