Queer/trans existence has often been rejected as ‘unnatural’. In recent years scientists, artists, and philosophers have begun to push back against this idea, celebrating the natural diversity and exuberance of nonhuman life, which is anything but straight! Queer and trans ecologies can take us further, though, revealing how popular understandings of ‘nature’ are deeply distorted by the cis- and hetero-normative values that are written into the bedrock of Western science.
Everyone is welcome to this queer and trans-focused event. In the workshop, participants will:
- Read together a selection of short excerpts from non-fiction comic strips by Sage Brice and other writers
- Discuss local examples of queerness in nature
- Make a short ‘zine about our own relationships with ideas of ‘nature’ and ‘the natural. The zine-making/drawing exercise will be carefully facilitated: no specific knowledge or skills are required
This session is timed to coincide with the exhibition Lintukoto by artist and studio holder Henna Asikainen alongside the film The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing by Theo Panagopoloulos, which explore related themes of belonging, identity, and ecology. Asikainen joins the reading session to speak about her new sound work.
Sage Brice is a published geographer and exhibiting artist. She is a NewBridge Project Researcher-in-Residence working alongside Holly Argent on In Bernicia’s Queer Garden. Her graphic non-fiction article ‘Not just gay penguins: on the importance of queer/trans ecologies for critical geography’, published in the journal Gender, Place & Culture, can be found in (and borrowed from) The NewBridge Project’s Reading Room.
