queer night tribes

London’s nightlife is constantly evolving, with recent years witnessing a wholesale decline in night time venues. Venues catering to the LGBTQ+ community have specifically been identified by the Greater London Authority (GLA) as an important part of the city’s cultural infrastructure and included as a priority for the GLA Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme. The GLA has also committed to an annual audit of LGBTQ+ venues after research revealed a 58% loss of these venues between 2006-2017, a sharper drop than the average across all night life venues (LGBTQ+ Cultural Infrastructure in London: Night Venues, 2006–present, Ben Campkin and Laura Marshall, UCL’s UrbanLab, July 2017, p.6).

‘Queer Night Tribes’ is about trying to understand this evolution through the lens of identity performance, specifically the way people dress on a night out. Whether referred to as style, fashion, costume or self-expression, the non-verbal communication of the way we dress is an interesting way to understand the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community, and thereby better identify and understand subcultures, patterns of clustering, social formation, positive and negative exclusion, decline and generational change. Rather than having a mission to 'save' Queer nightlife and spaces, the project is focussed on who might be disproportionately affected or excluded as a result of loss of venues. This insight could lead to more appropriate and specific responses from the GLA, night time venue operators, and the community itself.