Projects







Queer Ecologies Research Collective III:
GNOSIS / INITIATES / SOMA
18–24 August 2025
Mildred’s Lane | Beach Lake, PA

“Secretly or not...it is necessary to become different, or else cease to be.”
–Georges Bataille, “La conjuration sacrée,” Acéphale 1: June 24, 1936

In its third annual retreat, GNOSIS / INITIATES / SOMA, thematic emphasis is placed on counter-rational and arcane forms of knowledge. Ancient mystery rites, esoteric traditions, and secret societies provide a mytho-historical frame through which to study the accessibility and legibility of knowledge, its power to define social and ontological standards, and its potential to disrupt the transhistorical status quo. 

2025  Participants

Klara Vertes, Anie Stanley, Suzy Slykin, Atlas A. Lee-Reid, Alex A. Jones, Danielle Goshay, HWIY, Evie Horton, Theo Eliezer, Lindsey Dahms-Nolan, Nicholas di Benedetto








a Queer Ecologies Screening Night
1 May 2025
New Ear Inc. | 169 Bowery NYC 
Reception 7PM | Screening 8PM

Featuring audiovisual contributions by Cy X, CG Traytor, Darian Razdar, the Insitute of Queer Ecologies, Suzy Slykin, nyla coleman, Maurício Chades, and Nicholas di Benedetto. Curated by Alex A. Jones






Queer Ecologies Research Collective II: 
CREATION / BECOMING / CHAOS
July 29–August 11, 2024



Ecological collapse is a theater of the absurd—how do we play upon its stage? Gathering at the arts residency Mildred’s Lane, The Queer Ecologies Research Collective (QuERC) will embrace CREATION / BECOMING / CHAOS as a guiding logic, generating a space for embodied and performative research in pursuit of creative entanglement and co-evolution.

This session explored the “performance lecture” and cabaret as critical strategies for queer ecologies, culminating in a live cabaret featuring guest artist and emcee John Jarboe. Dada and drag provided frames of reference as playful and subversive art movements that speak to the power of the absurd, the disorienting, and the fantastical. The QuERC asserts that these affective tools are necessary to the pursuit of a regenerative spirit, and to our ability to intra-relate with concepts such as extinction and apocalypse. 

2024 Participants

Cy X, Wei Wu, Samiha Tasnim, Hermione Spriggs, Julia Simon, Darian Razdar, Liza Pittard, Tyna Ontko, Suzy Slykin, Alex A. Jones, John Jarboe, Sara Hodaie, Jessica Chen, Nicholas di Benedetto





“A Glossary for Queer Ecologies”
Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Issue 64: Queering Nature | Summer 2024





with entries by
Cy X, CG Traitor, Darian Razdar, Lee Pivnik (Institute for Queer Ecology), Alex A. Jones, briar coleman, Maurício Chades, Joanie Cappetta, Nick Bennett, Pia Bakala, Nicolas Baird (Institute for Queer Ecology)





Queer Ecologies Research Collective I: 
LAND / BODY / EROS
July 6–12, 2023


QuERC first assembled in July 2023 at the arts residency Mildred’s Lane (Upper Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania) to consider questions such as “What is a research paradigm for queer ecologies?” And “What can collective research processes generate?” The week-long session decomposed hierarchies between traditional academic work and domestic or social practice, with reading discussions, slide lectures, and theoretical roundtables intermixed with pond swimming, cooking meals, and watching fireflies. 

2023  Participants

Cy X, Bang Tran (Red Flower Collective), Darian Razdar, Lee Pivnik (Institute for Queer Ecology), Erin Montanez (Red Flower Collective), CG Traitor, Alex A. Jones, Adjua Gargi Nzgina Greaves, nyla coleman, Maurício Chades, Joanie Cappetta, Nick Bennett, Pia Bakala, Nicolas Baird (Institute for Queer Ecology)




For more information about upcoming engagements 
and ways to get involved, please contact us