Cruising Archaeology

'Cruising Archaeology', which shares its name with the Instagram account @cruisingarchaeology, is a carefully curated project that sees artists (who remain anonymous) reconstitute and repurpose items that have been discarded in popular cruising locations around London into cultural memorabilia. With archaeology as its starting point, more than 200 distinct items serve as a testament to the frequently unseen sexual behaviour in addition to uncovering and examining via a material culture lens the kinds of sex and pleasure that occur in cruising places. 

Cruising is defined as the pursuit of private sexual encounters in a variety of public settings. This usually includes parking lots, green spaces, public restrooms, forests, and more.  It's still a mostly male-only, clandestine, and stigmatized sexual behavior. Even if the popularity of dating apps and gentrification have contributed to the growth in cruising, cruising is still a common sexual practice. 

The scanned objects are accompanied by a report on "Jurassic," a well-known local cruising site in Medellín, written by academic David Edgar, an interview with a volunteer litter-picking group in one of the cruising sites, and a foreword by Marcus McCann, author of "Park Cruising: What Happens When We Wander Off Path" (2023).

This soft cover book is designed to fit in your pocket so that you may use it as a cruiser's nu-hunter's guide.

SMUT Press
Softcover
200 pages
125 × 175 mm