Queer Ecologies
Identity, pronouns and forest
Another day, another refusal for arts funding. At least that has been the rhythm of this week and many others in the past months.
Fortunate though I am to live in a country (Sweden) that still has (though drastically dwindling) arts funding, the chances of receiving these blessings are few. It does seem more simple to get funding for frivolities rather than art projects addressing ecological grief, deforestation and other uncomfortable subjects. I do spend a ridiculous amount of time writing grant applications that don’t come to pass, so much so that it is beginning to feel like a bad gambling habit. So I am hatching a plan and I invite you, dear reader, to join me.
What is the plan for revolution? Brooches… or badges. Here me out…
Inspired by a hilariously lovely and heartfelt conversation with my dear friend Pernilla last Sunday. As we sat, practicing sun-worship as only Scandinavians (and long term blow-ins like me) know how - eyes closed, faces sunward while cocooned in full-length down jackets. The first spring-ish day above 10 degrees C, between a pine, a spruce and a juniper on a nest of lichen. Pernilla declared 'If only people could understand, I identify as forest!' - I concurred completely, not feeling any line of separation between my body/being and nature/forest. My skin porous, particles of plant life inhaled deep in my lungs, spring water swimming in my blood. And so we came out to each other - declaring our identity as forest and just like that, a new pride movement was born.
Though queer ecology is nothing new, we did spend a joyous afternoon coming up with slogans for t-shirts, bags and postcards. Pernilla was on fire, I took notes between rolling bouts of liberatory laughter. Having just read
’s wonderful new book Body is a Doorway - I was in full resonance and a little extra attuned for this conversation. (Sophie - if by chance you read this and would accept the gift of a brooch with words of your choosing, I would be honoured to make you one. A thank you for your beautiful feeling, thinking and writing)Here are a few favourites:
Jag definierar mig som skog / I identify as forest (or ocean, temperate rainforest or other ecosystem) Ut ur garderoben, in i skogen! / Out of the closet, into the forest! I'm a forest in a forest of a forest Earth is my Lover
So how on earth are you, dear reader, implicated in all this?
Well, I have gone into production making hand embroidered queer ecology brooches for my founding members. (So far, that’s just you Mum! You can look forward to your brooch in the post:)
I will also be sending to my 2 other dear paid subscribers, Florine
and - thank you both for encouraging this endeavour from early days! Also, no obligation to keep being paying members. I know times are tough, I need to take a pause on my couple of subscriptions too.Here’s some pictures of the first example that I made for Pernilla for her birthday this week and a couple more in process:
Is this an entirely ridiculous idea? Perhaps. I’ll be wearing my brooch with pride in any case. If you happen to be of kindred ecological queerness and would like to have this articulated in many, many tiny stitches to give flourish to your outfit, you are so warmly welcome to sign up as a founding member! Do then send me your postage details in a direct message. We can then have a chat to define the phrase of your choosing or one of your own invention. You can even choose a background colour from my collection of silk scraps. Also, if you, like me, are an economically limited artist/writer but would absolutely LOVE to have a brooch of your own - do get in touch, I am open to trading artworks or books!
Some product info:
Materials used - recycled silk fabric, silk threads inherited from my great Aunty May (a seamstress who taught my Mum, who taught me, to sew), rainbow ribbon (new, polyester aka ancient forests shaped by eons into oil, spun into threads to make rainbows), safety pin (mineral source unknown), birch bark (responsibly sourced from neighbours fallen tree offered as firewood - but please note, if you are in Australia or New Zealand, I’d have to skip the birch bark due to quarantine regulations - ((having attempted to reimport a bark sculpture for exhibition in Australia I am well aware how challenging and costly this can be!)) so I propose to replace bark with bark tanned reindeer leather, it will be a little softer but just as fabulously from the forest).
Is it a brooch or a badge? Well, I did a quick search and wiki says a brooch is ‘a piece of women’s ornamental jewellery having a pin allowing it to be fixed to garments worn on the upper body’ and a badge is ‘a distinctive mark, token, sign, emblem or cognisance, worn on one's clothing, as an insignia of some rank, or of the membership of an organisation’… well this is either and both, so call it what you will and wear it where you will. You will do ARTISTS in RESONANCE proud, more than that you will be an integral part of ARTISTS in RESONANCE. Keeping us going, growing this refuge for relational art practice in the Swedish forest.
Lastly, while we are on the topic of identity, I’d like to leave you with a short poetry film I made a few years ago on forests and pronouns, called IT. Inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s proposal of pronouns ki/kin to signify a being/beings of the living earth:
“Aakibmaadiziiwin,” he said, “means ‘a being of the earth.’” I sighed with relief and gratitude for the existence of that word. However, those beautiful syllables would not slide easily into English to take the place of the pronoun it. But I wondered about that first sound, the one that came to me as I walked over the land. With full recognition and celebration of its Potawatomi roots, might we hear a new pronoun at the beginning of the word, from the “aaki” part that means land? Ki to signify a being of the living earth. Not he or she, but ki. So that when the robin warbles on a summer morning, we can say, “Ki is singing up the sun.” Ki runs through the branches on squirrel feet, ki howls at the moon, ki’s branches sway in the pine-scented breeze, all alive in our language as in our world.1
IT was released as part of the Ecoartspace online publication Embodied Forest in 2021.
A final note of good news!!
In the midst of writing this letter, I’ve been invited to be perform a piece of poetry (water carrying water) at Erik Ericsonhallen in Stockholm (which, if you don’t know it is a great dome of a deconsecrated church, now often repurposed for art) as part of Lumen Project Spring program on Sunday 6th of April. If you have a ticket, see you there! More info about the event here.
And some questions for you dear reader - In what way does queer ecology resonate with you? What ecosystem, place or beings do you feel deeply connected with, so much so that they feel inextricably part of you?
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Robin Wall Kimmerer, Speaking of Nature, Orion Magazine, June 12, 2017. https://orionmagazine.org/article/speaking-of-nature/
It is a long time since I made or watched a film poem, so thank you for this, so immersive, beautiful. ki/kin makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, and to say ki, imagining it as one of the first sounds one made as an infant.
Your badges are…. pure joy.
'Ki' fits perfectly in the mouth, nestled at the back of the tongue, a sacred space for a sacred word designating the kinship of all living and non-living beings. Great post, thank you!