Your Restroom is a Battleground
Your Restroom is a Battleground
"Restrooms are often described as neutral facilities or mere utilitarian infrastructures catering to the universal needs of individuals. But they are contested spaces that are shaped by and in turn shape the ways bodies and communities come together. Restrooms are architectures where gender, religion, race, ability, hygiene, health, environmental concerns, and the economy are defined culturally and articulated materially. In the last years, the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and growing tensions derived from population displacements have made these entanglements more evident. Restrooms are not an isolated design problem but rather symptoms of larger disputes that can be mediated through architectural tools. Your Restroom is a Battleground presents a selection of seven case studies as an installation at the Arsenale. The case studies are presented through dioramas that represent a variety of restroom battles around the world and illustrate how these debates take shape and reflect local and global social concerns and agendas. Restrooms are political architectures, they are battlegrounds."