‘This magical place’: Understanding BiCon 2008 as a heterotopic place-event

Abstract

In this article, I outline findings from a photo-elicitation study of a bisexual community event in the United Kingdom. Participants describe the event as taking place in ‘a separate world’, a ‘portable bubble’ reached by a symbolic journey away from the everyday, within which they can recognise themselves as present-tense bisexual subjects. These framings support a theorisation of BiCon as a heterotopic place-event where the paradox of bisexual subjectivity can be temporarily resolved. Applying the concept of heterotopia to BiCon 2008 allows us to account for the relationship between the ‘magical space’ of BiCon and the spaces of the non-BiCon world. Further, by theorising BiCon 2008 as a place-event (Pink, 2012), we can begin to account for the ways in which the space is produced intersubjectively, through the movements and practices of its constituents.