Do you want me to come? — Sebastian Abugattas Photography

SEBASTIAN ABUGATTAS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Do you want me to come?

2015-2025

In the past, cruising spaces have served as venues for the gay community to gather: A place for revolution and subversion, not only pleasure. This project visits London's traditional cruising parks, observing their social dynamics to see if they continue to be vessels for social change or if they have evolved into something different.

Through these cruising spots, I have learned so much about my community's rich history and the challenges we have faced. Including the chance to explore the places where people gathered since Victorian times, the parks that got the worst of policing and social changes in the 1980s, and how, despite all the odds, these spaces have always flourished.

Drawing inspiration from Antonioni’s Blow-up – the act of magnifying places and images is a constant theme that I revisit and reconsider – I approach these spaces with a clinical yet neutral lens. Through my work, I see photography as a powerful tool to challenge the existing social structures, both in public and private spaces.

I am particularly interested in developing a new visual language that captures these otherwise invisible places and preserves them from fading away. This new way of seeing originates from the silence often found in the cruising experience. It draws from a unique form of nonverbal communication, rich with gestures, glances, and body language. This leads to what I would call the new semiotics of cruising, which invites a more profound reflection on photography and its boundaries.