Queer Ecologies: The Unnatural

Paul B. Preciado is a writer, curator, film maker and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and sexual politics. He is the author of numerous books including Testo Junkie. Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics; Pornotopia; Can the Monster Speak?; An Apartment on Uranus; and Dysphoria Mundi. Paul B. Preciado is also internationally known for his experimental curatorial activities at the intersection of critical thinking, art, and activism. Coming from feminism, trans, and anti-racist critical theory, Preciado has led numerous projects with artists, writers, and thinkers to develop and explore new forms of social, philosophical, and political intervention inside and outside art and academic institutions. His first film, Orlando: My political biography, premiered at Berlinale in 2023 and received four awards including the Teddy Award for Best LGBT Documentary and the Special Price of the Jury for Best Documentary. His last book, Mon nom est Body, has been published by Le Seuil in French in 2026 and will be published by Fitzcarraldo and Graywolf Press in English and by Anagrama in Spanish in 2027. Preciado was born in Spain and lives in Paris.

Brigitte Baptiste is one of the most influential figures in biodiversity, sustainability, and gender diversity matters globally. A Colombian biologist who graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, she holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies with an emphasis on Tropical Conservation and Development from the University of Florida. Her academic career and her impact on environmental management have earned her two honorary doctorates: in Environmental Management from Unipaz and in Law from the University of Regina. For almost a decade, she led the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, first as deputy director of research and then as director. Since 2019, she has served as Rector of EAN University, a pioneering institution in sustainable entrepreneurship and ecological transformation in Latin America.

Carlos Motta is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores sexuality, gender, and power through historical research and collaborative practice. Recent projects include Gravidade (Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, 2024) and participation in the Disobedience Archive at La Biennale di Venezia. His mid-career survey Carlos Motta: Pleas of Resistance was presented at MACBA (2025) and will travel to OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz (2026). His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including at MoMA, the ICA Los Angeles, the Carnegie International, the Berlin Biennale, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Bienal de São Paulo. He has also held major solo exhibitions at MAMBO (Bogotá), Wexner Center for the Arts, MAMM (Medellín), and Röda Sten Konsthall. Motta is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his work is held in major collections such as MoMA, the Met, the Guggenheim, Reina Sofía, and Centre Pompidou. He is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice at Pratt Institute.

Cy X is a performance-artist, writer, and somatic researcher born under Southern-American skies to farmers, witches, educators, and musicians. They now live between New York City and Germany as they complete a Live Arts and Performative Practice Masters at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg. Currently, they are worlding a PERVERTED PRACTICE, reclaiming eroticism and critical perversion as a political method. Here, sabotage, misuse, and deviance become tools to unfuck // hack // top(ple) unjust systems. They have previously been a resident and/or had work featured in: Center for Art Research and Alliances, Culture Hub, New Inc’s Creative Science track (Year 11), Pioneer Works, The Processing Foundation, POWRPLNT, The School for Poetic Computation, Rewire Festival, and other spaces, both digital and physical.

Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is the author of Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature. She currently works as the Curator of Mycology at the New York State Museum. Her research focuses on fungal taxonomy, diversity, evolution, symbiosis, and ecology. She is a teacher with experience ranging from outdoor nature education for children to college level biology courses in maximum security prisons. Patricia is a co-founder of the International Congress of Armenian Mycologists, which seeks to jointly protect Armenian sovereignty and biodiversity. She also studies philosophy of science, queer ecology, and queer theory, exploring how mycology and other scientific disciplines are situated in and informed by our sociopolitical landscape. Her work, The science underground: mycology as a queer discipline (2020), bridged the relationship between queerness and mycology.

Lee Pivnik is an artist based in Miami, Florida. His practice is grounded in what he describes as “feral futurism”, a framework for living with and cultivating systems beyond human control. A sculptor and a scavenger, he looks toward other species as architects, collaborators, and ecological storytellers that reveal other ways of being and relating in the world. His sculptures, public artworks, and films create a visual language for ecological entanglement, frequently referencing South Florida’s changing landscapes. Lee co-directs the Institute of Queer Ecology, and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Sculpture.

Nicolas Baird is a paleobiologist and artist whose work frames the world as a network of strange kin. In their scientific research, they look back in time to understand how bodies, landscapes, and climate have made each other into what they are today. In their artistic practice, they explore mutability, relationality, and adaptation through poetry, photography, and performance. Alongside their scientific research and artistic practice, Nicolas co-directs the Institute of Queer Ecology, a continuously evolving collaboration that creates and commissions projects for a more beautiful, strange, (bio)diverse world. They grew up in the Sonoran desert outside Tucson, Arizona and currently live in New York City.

Yuri Tuma is a multidisciplinary Brazilian artist living in Madrid, where he co-founded the Institute for Postnatural Studies and practices as its Academic and Artistic Co-Director. Yuri’s work focuses on the investigation of contemporary narratives related to sonic and queer ecologies through collective practice, active listening, sound art, installation, and performance. In early 2020, he co-founded the Institute for Postnatural Studies (IPS) in Madrid, a platform for critical thought and a collaborative network of artists, researchers, curators, and thinkers engaged with the complexities of the ecological crisis. In addition to participating in residencies and coordinating workshops around interspecies kinships and sound ecologies, Yuri has worked with educational and mediation programs at Spanish and international institutions such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Matadero Madrid, HEAD Géneve, Berlinale, Fundación Mar Adentro, School of Commons, among others. Within IPS, he also actively shapes the editorial route of Cthulhu Books, an editorial platform to showcase the political potential of imagining new worlds and possible stories for the planet through academic and artistic research.