![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_hero-852x479.jpg)
House installed inside MAAT gallery to draw parallels between queerness and incarceration
Portuguese artists João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira have erected a two-storey building inside the MAAT in Lisbon, filled with references to "dissident forms of sexuality".
Visitors are invited to enter the dark, mysterious structure, where they find a two-storey interior containing what looks like the cells and wash room of a prison, but which is also reminiscent of gay cruising venues.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_2-852x568.jpg)
Titled Loving as the Road Begins, the installation draws comparisons between the constructs of imprisonment and the realities of queer existence.
"The artists juxtapose a variety of opposing references which conjure up images of impurity and sanitation, illness and cure, crime and punishment, associating incarceration structures with forbidden existences," reads an exhibition overview.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_3-852x568.jpg)
The project developed through Vale and Ferreira's research into the late surrealist poet and painter Mário Cesariny.
During a residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, the pair stayed in an apartment close to the monument, Saint-Jacques Tower. They recognised it as the cover image of Cesariny's book, A Cidade Queimada, or Burnt City.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_1-852x1278.jpg)
Cesariny wrote the book in 1964, during a two-month incarceration at Fresnes prison, where he was sent after being arrested for soliciting a police officer in a Paris cinema and accused of gross indecency.
The poet's imprisonment is believed by many to have been persecution, as a result of his so-called vagrancy – a derogatory term used at the time to describe homosexuals. So Vale and Ferreira felt it would make sense to take a close look at this time in his life.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_5-852x1278.jpg)
Given Cesariny's obsession with the gothic tower and its garden, the pair designed the installation to look like a building found in the grounds.
They imagined that this simple structure, containing a ground floor and a basement, might have served as a living space or rest area for the garden watchman, or as a store room for tools. It also contained public toilets – a type of space often used in gay cruising.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_0-852x568.jpg)
At the MAAT, this building is recreated as a two-storey structure, accessed via a staircase that leads up to the first floor.
Inside are dark-painted spaces, dimly lit by red and white neon lights. Walls are covered in graffiti, and sections of the space are partitioned off into cells.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_6-852x1278.jpg)
One space contains latrines, while another contains showers. There is also a dressing table covered in bottles and an old radio.
Downstairs, water from the showers above drips down through the gridded metal ceiling, into a large pool. Posed poster images of naked men cover the wall, forming part of the graffiti artwork.
![Loving as the Road Begins by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira at MAAT](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2019/11/maat-installation-joao-pedro-vale-nuno-alexandre-ferreira-loving-as-the-road-begins_dezeen_2364_col_7-852x1278.jpg)
The exhibition was curated by Inês Grosso. It is not the first to shine a light on the physical spaces of gay cruising.
The Cruising Pavilion – previously shown in Venice and now exhibiting in Stockholm – also highlights the role that sex plays in architecture and interiors.
Loving as the Road Begins is on show at MAAT until 20 April 2020.