QUEER
ECOLOGY
Queer ecologies involves challenging traditional binarisms that exist within human understandings of life: female/male, nature/culture, living/non-living, individual/collective among many other anthropocentric dichotomies. Our interest in queering ecology lies in enabling humans to imagine an infinite number of possible Natures and Futures along them. In the words of Alex Johnson: “The living world exhibits monogamy. But it also exhibits orgies, gender transformation, and cloning. What, then, is natural? All of it. None of it. Instead of using the more-than-human world as justification for or against certain behavior and characteristics, let’s use the more-than-human world as a humbling indication of the capacity and diversity of all life on Earth.”
SENTIENT
ECOLOGY
Sentient ecology explores the knowledge and perceptions people have of their environments. It is knowledge, not of a formal, authorized kind, but transmissible knowledge in contexts outside those of its practical application. Sentient ecology brings humans into communicative relationships with the ecological world and extends the concept of personhood to animals, plants, and ultimately to all ecological life on Earth.
VISIONARY
ECOLOGIES
Visionary ecologies is a term we propose for the practice of speculating possible environmental relationships through what we call ecological visions or fictions. These visions may be presented through books, comics, films, artworks or any creative work that aims to critically inspect human-ecological interactions with a more-than-human world. Originating with science fiction and fantasy writers, the practice of creating imaginary worlds is one that has gone on to influence many contemporary artists today who are experimenting with different platforms to create alternate realities and new visions for the future. The result is the creation and co-habitation of new worlds that work inside a field of expanded interspecies interactions.