PORTRAITS OF QUEER LIVING: 5 THINGS WITH QUAN THAI

How do you make a home in a space that isn’t designed for you? It’s a question architect and educator Quan Thai thinks a lot about. His installation TO·BE·LONGING: Portraits of Queer Living, housed in an Ace Hotel Toronto Suite during DesignTO Festival 2026, is an experiment in introducing fluidity to domesticity, imagining a home freed from the heteronormative confines of single-family housing.

Our homes are often understood to be the physical manifestation of our identities. But architecture by nature is rigid, largely reliant upon specific models that work in terms of efficiency, cost or space saving, Quan says. TO·BE·LONGING imagines how architecture could function for those who do not conform. It rethinks the rigidity of home with new spatial parameters adaptable enough to shelter new relationships and honor collective resiliency. 

TO·BE·LONGING imagines how architecture could function for those who do not conform. 

“For example,” says Quan, “spaces that bridge the kitchen and the living room to create a new space, then intertwining these intimate paths that lead to different pockets. It speaks a little to how the historic gay demographic had to navigate through existing spaces and find their own pockets of safety.”

In response to the prompt, “What makes your home queer?,” nearly 40 objects were received from queer community members and displayed during the show. They were everyday objects that represent nuanced depictions of queer life were shared, challenging viewers to deepen their understanding of how queerness manifests in the domestic space. Below, Quan breaks down five common themes surrounding queer living, expressed through a selection of the show’s collected artifacts and the meaning behind them.

1) QUEER COMING OF AGE

“These artifacts represent a type of gender performance when these individuals were younger,” says Quan. “With these objects, there’s a subtle hiding of the identity that the contributors are now much more proud of. I feel like objects in this category resonate with many people, because through them, one is able to recognize and express this internal exploration of joy or fear on one’s own.”

OBJECT: BUTTERFLY WING PLATE
This butterfly wing plate belonged to my maternal grandmother and once sat on a shelf in her kitchen. As a boy, I was always drawn to the activities of the women in my family. I was more interested in joining my mother, aunts and grandmother at craft shows than I was in participating in sports and pastimes of the men … It now hangs in my kitchen as a reminder of my grandmother … and of the connections I’ve always felt with the women in my family, connections I now understand as part of my queer identity. —Anonymous

2) QUEER FAMILY BUILDING

“The kitchen is always the place that brings everyone together, and I think these two objects —a community-sourced recipe rolodex and depictions of a dinner series titled Chez Olive (after the contributors’ cat) — are very true representations of that within the queer home,” says Quan. “There’s a particular bond that transcends the act of simply eating to form a space of safety and love around this kind of hearth — the queer hearth of the home, in a way.”

OBJECT: RECIPE ROLODEX
As queer mixed-race people, the concept of home-making as community-making and as queer/BIPOC resistance is close to our hearts. In lieu of a wedding guestbook, we included blank recipe cards in each guest’s invitation and asked them to share a favorite recipe with us. We see food as a connector — it’s at the heart of our relationships, and this recipe collection feels like an embodiment of the constellations of relationships that shape our lives, bringing our chosen family into the center of our home — the kitchen. —jade gutrie (she/her) & Em Dial (they/she)

3) QUEER RITUALS

“There’s a common thread of ancestral grounding certain objects share — even beginning to speak to how geography can play a role in how someone’s identity is performed, displayed or shown in public,” says Quan. “This Buddhist ancestral altar was a very interesting one because I grew up with a very similar thing. The question of queerness wasn’t necessarily embedded within the religious rituals, but in thinking about the contributor’s own identity and how they can connect it back to family roots.”

OBJECT: ANCESTRAL ALTAR
This composition represents and holds the memories of two altar rooms for Vietnamese ancestral worship in Vietnam and Canada. My grandmother’s house in Haiphong, Vietnam, and my parents’ altar in Mississauga, Ontario are spaces I have struggled to understand as a queer and diasporic Vietnamese Canadian. The practice of ancestral worship was unknown (and thus queer) to me growing up as a 1.5 generation Canadian with little exposure to these rituals. Upon my first visit to Vietnam as an adult, it became clearer that altar practices could orient our homes, our cities and our daily lives. I was fascinated and believed that the altars themselves could be a portal to align my own domestic worlds with an ancestral practice I lacked fluency in.  Could I create a personal altar practice in the future homes I build in Canada and beyond? In sketches, maquette, photographs and words, I attempt to map what I could in the physical and emotional spaces created when translating a ritual into an object of longing. —Thompson Cong Nguyen (he/they)

4) QUEER JOY

“There’s layers to both of these in the sense that they’re more explicitly queer objects visually — one is a concrete butt plug and the other a Ken doll assemblage. During the installation, everyone responded to these right away,” says Quan.

OBJECT: CONCRETE BUTT PLUG
This (unused) concrete plug is one of several created during a collaborative workshop with friends to teach the basics of concrete casting. While the object itself, a butt plug, has inherent queer and sexual connotations, its greater significance is rooted in the process of its creation. It stands as an artifact of a party through fun and silly moments of collective making, skill-sharing and embracing the humorous and subversive. —Anonymous

OBJECT: KEN DOLL ASSEMBLAGE
Ken dolls have had a significant cultural and societal impact on the supposed role of the male, chasing after the female: Barbie. By campifying Ken, we re-imagine an alternate reality for Ken, one that’s more camp and more gay. I grew up playing with Barbie dolls and continuing that tradition, one I felt some shame about when I was young, seems like a defiant celebration of a gay sensibility that I once felt was embarrassing. —Stephen Low (he/him)

5) QUEER RESILIENCE

“There’s something about the idea of resilience and growth and memorialization expressed through objects that could be easily overlooked,” says Quan.

OBJECT: PILL BOTTLES
My experiences growing up under circumstances of homophobia within my religious community distorted my own understanding of my self-identity. These empty pill bottles are one way I take back control of being queer in a society hostile towards us. PrEP acts as a strategy to reduce sex-related stigma while lorazepam helps me to manage scars of the past … They represent the resiliency in mental health struggles — struggles that impact a staggeringly high proportion of queer people. —David Kinitz (he/him)

OBJECT: SMALL PURPLE FLOWER
This purple flower was a token of remembrance provided at the funeral of a young queer man. His life was celebrated so fondly by his family and friends, and he brought so much joy and brightness to the world. He was tragically killed shortly after leaving a Pride celebration during a hit-and-run. I previously worked with his mother who is a fierce ally and strong supporter of our community. She is truly a mother most gay/queer kids could only dream of having. I may have not known this young man personally, but this flower serves as a reminder to me to live your life fiercely and beautifully. Additionally, it serves as a reminder to take advantage of my time and embrace my queer family and allies, and to remember the brilliant and wonderful souls of those we have lost. —David Dumais (he/him)

• #Art
• #Community