6 sessions
120 min each
From Oct. 18th to Nov. 22nd
18:30 to 20:30
(CET / CEST)
English
Institute of Queer Ecology
Registrations closed
For student discount or registration to the full Network Program, send an email to studies@instituteforpostnaturalstudies.org
Queer Ecology is a theoretical framework that applies queer theory to environmental concerns, ecological constructs, and our relationships with nature. The speakers in this series will consider the influence of mutability and mutualism on their work in the fields of visual art, evolutionary biology, biodiversity, environmental activism, synthetic biology, ecology, and queer theory.
Queerness and ecology together make visible the interconnected, entangled conditions of life on earth and honor the strange, multispecies amalgamation we live in community with. To make sense of the broad constellation of practices that emerge from Queer Ecology, we examine at two scales: the individual and the collective. As we explore, the binary distinction between these scales quickly blurs and blends.
At the scale of the individual—the organism—Queerness is mutability: it is the power of transformation; of shapeshifting, fluency, and the freedom to move from form to form; of code-switching, mimicry, flamboyance, delight; of subtlety, grace, and the embrace of fluidity. It plays in contrast to rigidity, permanence, and stasis; to one way of being. It is a metamorphosis and a constant becoming.
At the scale of the collective—the ecosystem—Queerness is mutualism: it is symbiotic, in-contact, relational; it is a space of eccentric economies and mutual support; of found families and utopian dreams; of care and connection and the net benefits species gift one another. It is a world shaped by cooperation. On a rapidly changing planet, Queer mutability and mutualism can guide us toward adaptation and survival.
The speakers in this seminar series will consider the influence of mutability and mutualism on their work in the fields of visual art, evolutionary biology, biodiversity, environmental activism, synthetic biology, ecology, and queer theory.
Need-based scholarships are available, apply here.
18 / 10 / 2022 - The Institute of Queer Ecology
In 2017 Pivnik started the Institute of Queer Ecology, a collaborative organism that works to imagine and realize an equitable multispecies future. He has continued to run the project alongside artist and evolutionary biologist Nicolas Baird. IQECO builds on the theoretical framework of Queer Ecology, an adaptive practice concerned with interconnectivity, intimacy, and multispecies relationality. Guided by queer and feminist theory and decolonial thinking, they work to undo dangerously destructive human-centric hierarchies—or even flip them—to look at the critical importance of things happening invisibly; underground and out of sight.
To date, the Institute of Queer Ecology has worked with over 120 different artists to present interdisciplinary programming that oscillates between curating exhibitions and directly producing artworks/projects. IQECO has presented projects with the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Miami, Florida), the Julia Stoschek Collection (Düsseldorf, Germany), the Medellín Museum of Modern Art (Medellín, Colombia), the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (Serbia), ASAKUSA (Tokyo, Japan), the Biennale of Sydney (Australia), Prairie (Chicago, IL), Bas Fisher Invitational (Miami, FL) Gas Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), among others.
25 / 10 / 2022 - Hayden Dunham Rooted in a strong belief in the transcendence of objects,
27 / 10 / 2022 - Sixto-Juan Zavala
Fereshteh is an educator, learner, and an artist of the Iranian and Azeri diaspora, currently in Miami-Dade on stolen lands still stewarded by the Miccosukee and Seminole people, and previously by the Calusa and Tequesta tribal bands. South Florida is home to many Indigenous people, as well as Black, Brown, and Caribbean people whose ancestors lived and worked on the land against their will, while enslaved, or under threat of violence. Fereshteh’s work relies on the extractive and colonial infrastructure of digital computation which uses electronics and servers, all of which are made possible by occupying places where other beings live, or once lived. 8 / 11 / 2022 - Jack Halberstam
Jack Halberstam has co-edited a number of anthologies including Posthuman Bodies with Ira Livingston (Indiana University Press, 1995) and a special issue of Social Text with Jose Munoz and David Eng titled “What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?” Jack is a popular speaker and gives lectures around the country and internationally every year. Lecture topics include queer failure, sex, media, subcultures, visual culture, gender variance, popular film, and animation. 15 / 11 / 2022 - Christy Gast
22 / 11 / 2022 - Institute for Postnatural Studies After a brief introduction to the postnatural framework, this session will focus on new modes of overcoming the human/animal binomial. We will explore how humans have interacted with animals in western culture and contrast it with other approaches to multi-species coexistence. Collectively we will also exercise different ways of embodying an expanded notion of the human-animal through vocal activations and roleplaying through hybrid bodies. Case studies of wild children, the phonocene, contemporary artistic practices, and different cultural and popular subgenres of identity and sexuality will provide a horizontal and fertile platform to discuss and learn from each other.
For student discount or registration to the full Network Program, send an email to studies@instituteforpostnaturalstudies.org