Queer city, a reader opens up new possibilities for looking at São Paulo and cities all over the world from the perspective of queerness. Essays drawing from queer theory, as well as less formal points of view on the role of queerness in the city, create a compendium that tries to imagine what a queer city is and what it could be. In addition to offering a layered historical analysis of the role of queerness in the development of São Paulo’s neighborhoods, the texts propose different approaches to the relation between city and queerness. These include, among others: art interventions to tame gentrification and disconnection driven by the increasing presence of “glazed” real estate developments; alternative readings of the capitalist urban environment through the disruptive lens of the pariah; an analysis of LGBTQ spaces through the eyes of HIV; strategies to reimagine our relationship with the city; and recipes that acknowledge the power dynamics acted in the process of eating. This collection uses queerness to challenge our preconceptions not only of what a city should be, but also of the role and spaces of queerness. Part of this effort is the subversion of the font used in the book, which brings into question the patriarchal norms of language.
— Chiara Dorbolò, Curator of the Architecture Book Fair 2021
