Design development: Rachel Refael, Gavin Oliver O’Leary
Contributing Researchers and artists: Milena Sekulic, Prostitution Information Center
Production Management: Eva Garibaldi
Advisory: Pol Esteve Castello
Photos by: Eric Stynes
Exhibited at : ARCAM (Centrum voor Architectuur)
Texts by: Rachel Refael, Sjaan van der Tol
Supported by: BlueCity, Stimulerings Fonds, Centrum voor Architectuur, FRONT® (formerly StoneCycling)
‘Peeping Spaces‘ is a research-driven, archival-based exhibition and community engagement project that explores the history of erasure and persecution of sex-based spaces in Amsterdam’s De Wallen district amidst recent urban redevelopment.
This project aims to elevate marginalized voices and confront exclusionary narratives by exposing viewers to informal histories. By weaving together historical narratives, architectural analysis, and archival research, ‘Peeping Spaces’ documents the cultural significance of given spaces. It champions the preservation of diverse urban landscapes and the need for more inclusive planning practices.
The exhibition featured contributions from members of the Prostitution Information Center (PIC), who shared valuable insights and perspectives. The project was part of Open Monumentendag 2024 and Amsterdam Museum Nacht 2024, produced by the Pleasure Society.
Research and Curation: Rebecca Schedler
Design development + production: Rachel Refael, Rebecca Schedler
Exhibited at: Worm Rotterdam
WORMnest transforms the Boomgaardstraat building into a sentient, shape-shifting organism as part of the Wunderbar Window Expo series. This window installation dissolves the boundaries between body and architecture, nightlife and anatomy. Latex organs pulse, conversations ferment, and viscous flows circulate, reimagining the bar as a living entity that absorbs, digests, and evolves with each encounter. WORMnest offers a glimpse into a space where interiors surface and the night reveals a fleshy, fluid core.
Project: Graduation Project
Supervisors: Dr. Ephraim Joris, Federico Martelli
Photos by: Chiara Catalini
Exhibited at: Manifestations, Dutch Design Week 2021
Texts by: Rachel Refael
Supported by: Van Beek Donner Stichting, MIARD Alumni Research Award
“Made to Disappear” explores the living room as a site of performance influenced by the forced exclusion of sex work from the public sphere under Bill C-36. This project is based on interviews with a Canadian sex worker, and her spatial negotiation within the home.
By researching the division of private and public spaces for sex workers operating within domestic interiors, the project explores the living room both as a heterotopic realm and as a domestic extension of the Polis. While being either disposable or easily sterilized, all the materiality in this project carries foreign traces into the idea of domesticity. It strips the space of ornamental comfort through multiple spatial references such as; massage parlours, bachelor pads, and clinical sites.