From Bathrooms to Restrooms: When the Private Becomes Public

In partnership with the ASU Hugh Downs School of Communication, Project Humanities presents a body/gender inclusivity workshop with Bathrooms as the reference point.

Too often, people go through life without a critical awareness of how a physical space can impact and represent cultural power. Too often folks have no real sense of what goes into imagining, designing and implementing a space’s structure, shape and form.

For example, the width of a doorway tells us what bodies are and are not welcome; men’s and women’s restrooms tell us which bodies can and cannot relieve themselves and where; the limited number of accessible restrooms stalls tell us which bodies are assumed to need to use a restroom at all. All the while differences – size, gender, ability in these examples – are blamed for failing to measure up to standards designed to exclude.

Join this evening of learning, thinking, performing and reflecting on the power and politics of architectural design – the ways design communicates exclusion and inclusion beyond our usual understanding of the world.

Taking restrooms as a point of focus, this workshop invites and challenges participants to imagine new and more inclusive ways of demonstrating and creating more humane architectural futures composed by rather than against difference.