Cruising Archaeology

Cruising Archaeology: Archiving Pleasure and Queer Worldmaking with Jack Scollard

Presented within the context of Patrick Hough’s exhibition UnWorlding at Galway Arts Centre, this presentation by Jack Scollard, co-founder of SMUT press will consider how ‘cruising’ disrupts fixed categories and functions as a form of world-building – offering alternative ways of understanding pleasure, identity and community.

Cruising Archaeology, is an ongoing creative research practice initiated in 2023. The project began as an anonymous Instagram account through which the artist reconstituted discarded detritus and debris collected from over a dozen prominent cruising locations across London into cultural artefacts through a meticulous process of scanning, cataloguing and uploading to the platform. Through a material culture framework, the project examines the forms of sexual activity and pleasure enacted within cruising environments, while also bearing witness to the often marginalised and invisible nature of these practices.

In May 2026, the project expanded with the release of the follow up publication “Cruising Archaeology II: Eurotrash,” featuring artefacts collected across Europe. The publication includes contributions from Marc Svensson (You Are Loved) and Mati Klitgård (Gay Consent.Lab), addressing chemsex, intimacy and consent, alongside texts by Stav B on the erasure of lesbian cruising spaces, Jordan Tannahill’s piece recounts a night on Hampstead Heath, and Prem Sahib’s insert “Vape,” reflects on digital and physical encounters. It opens with João Florêncio’s essay “Fucking Ruins,” linking queerness to empire, decay, and hauntology.

From April to July 2026, Cruising Archaeology: The Pleasure Archive Research Centre at Studio Voltaire in south London explores how ephemeral histories can be exhibited, inviting visitors to engage with the space as a critical cruising ground. The exhibited objects serve as physical witnesses to private desire in public terrain, testifying to moments of intimacy and anonymity.

About the Exhibition
UnWorlding by Patrick Hough explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly, not as chaos but as a force that resists control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition gathers figures and sites where this wildness persists: in landscapes shaped by colonial violence, in the unruly terrains of queer desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.

Jack Scollard is an Irish artist based in London and a co-founder of SMUT Press. A graduate of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, where they completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Printmaking & Critical Cultures, Scollard’s multidisciplinary practice engages with archival methodologies across photography, print, and publishing. Drawing on both personal and collective histories, Scollard’s practice considers how queer life is recorded, circulated, and preserved, and how ephemeral cultures resist disappearance through acts of documentation and reproduction.

Recent projects include the exhibition Cruising Archaeology: The Pleasure Archive Research Centre at Studio Voltaire (April-July 2026), which explores strategies for presenting ephemeral histories and invites visitors to engage with the space as a critical cruising ground. In May 2026, Scollard released Cruising Archaeology II: Eurotrash through a series of launches across Europe. Featuring contributions from Prem Sahib, João Florêncio, Stav B, Gay Consent.Lab, and You Are Loved, the publication is the long-awaited follow-up to the sold-out Cruising Archaeology, first launched at the Paris Ass Book Fair in May 2024. The project has received widespread acclaim, and Scollard has presented lectures on this work at UCL and at academic conferences. In August 2024, they were a recipient of the Agility Award from the Arts Council Ireland.

In 2022, they co-founded SMUT Press, an independent print press committed to supporting and disseminating the work of underrepresented LGBTQ+ artists. The curatorial framework of SMUT Press adopts a multidisciplinary approach to publishing, positioning printed matter as both a critical and political medium. Through its programme, the press examines the relationship between identity, representation, and socio-spatial contexts. Since 2024, SMUT Press has expanded to include the production of irregular nightlife events, extending its curatorial remit into live, community-based contexts and fostering dialogue between publishing, performance, and queer social space. In 2025, SMUT Press was named in the Dazed 100 list as part of a global selection of those influencing culture and art.

This presentation takes place as part of our late night programme “Gallery Lates” supported by Galway City Council and the Department of Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sports as part of the Galway City Night-Time Economy Action Plan.

Profile photo: Vincent Wechselberger