SSU #5. Queer Afterlives of Public Art

What happens to public art when it is no longer physically present in public space? How does it have an afterlife in its material absence? Public art does not only need to be studied in the context of public space – which has remained the predominant focus in public-art research – but also in public time.

In this talk, I present an interview-based case study on the former Warsaw-based artwork Tęcza (2012-2015), Polish for Rainbow, which was made by Julita Wójcik. This artwork was destroyed by arson due to its LGBTQ+ associations; however, it continued igniting public discourses about LGBTQ+ rights in Poland.

I argue how a public artwork that was originally not intended as a queer monument became one, showing how it has been challenging heteronormative norms around the visibility and place of LGBTQ+ lives in Polish public space.

I use this study to stress the importance of attending to the temporalities of a public artwork, not only to learn about Tęcza’s dynamic cultural and political significance in particular but also about how this lens is important to the examination of the broader processes of inclusion and exclusion of marginalised identities.

This presentation draws from my joint study “The queer afterlives of public art: The spaces and times of Warsaw’s Tęcza (Rainbow)”, with Robert M. Vanderbeck and Katarzyna Wojnicka, forthcoming in Geoforum https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104424, as part of the AHRC research project Queer Memorials: International Comparative Perspectives on Sexual Diversity and Social Inclusivity (QMem).

Martin Zebracki is Professor of Human Geography and Social Inclusion in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He has researched and published widely on public art, place and identity, and social inclusivity. Zebracki leads collaborative research projects on queer memorials, inclusive field research, and methods of art and activism for social and environmental justice

Lezingen op vrijdagavond 17.30 – 19.30 in USquare.

De ontmoetinsgsplaats voor stedelingen, vlak voordat het weekend begint. 

In samenwerking met het Brussels Centre for Urban Studies.

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