The Institute of Queer Ecology: Common Survival
September 6, 2019 – October 13, 2019
Presented in Gallery One
About the Exhibition
Common Survival is a multi-format publication, meaning its contents are untethered and diverse in material. Common Survival exists as an 11 x 17 x 5 inch traveling exhibition in a box —33 projects made to migrate. This publication is a collection of a variety of survival tactics, taking form as printed booklets of text, zines, screenprints and photographs, sculptural objects, poems, video or audio recordings on media devices, or other hybridized modes of research display.
Some contributors look towards the future, imagining biotech evolutions that will allow for greater independence from regimes of control, or propose a multispecies transgenic hybridity that will mutually benefit us and other organisms. Some share tactics rooted in the past: ancestral indigenous knowledge spreading beneath settler colonialism. Others present projects rooted in the deepest present; social rituals meant to be acted out in unison by people that encounter this collection of work.
The 33 selected works are the result of an international open call and the final selection includes people in varying stages of their careers, spanning 7 countries. In an effort to democratize the production and reception of artistic research, there are 6 copies of Common Survival, and none are available for sale, rather they exist like library books, available to be loaned to any interested party. Each publication is housed in a unique case customized by an artist. The UV printed, plexiglass publication housing present in this exhibition at Vox Populi was designed by Philadelphia-based artists Allyson Church and Greta Skagerlind.
Common Survival features contributions from Molly Adams, Nicolas Baird, Amanda Baum & Rose Leahy, Haley Bueschlen, Angela Chan / algaela, Sabeen Chaudhry, Allyson Church & Greta Skagerlind, Lucy Cleek, Tiger Dingsun, Charlie Ehrenfried, Andil Gosine, Ryan Hammond, Quinn Harrelson, Emily Harter, Invisible Labor, Emily Jones, David Kim, Les U. Knight, Estraven Lupino-Smith, Tim Mann, Marius Mason, Lee Pivnik, Plasticity (Gabriele Leo & Grazia Mappa), POSADAS (Pablo Herza & Ignacio Hernández Murillo), Queer EcoJustice Project, Catriona Sandilands, Micah Schippa, Jack Schneider, Pinar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Michelle Site, Corinne Teed, Andrea Tirrell, Rachel Weaver – Weaver Zines, Antonia Wright, Virtuellestheater, Edgar Xochitl, Agustine Zegers and Luis Angel Zepeda.
About the Artists
The Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) is a collaborative organism looking to find and create alternatives. The solutions to environmental degradation are found on the periphery and we seek to bring them to the forefront of public consciousness. Guided by queer and feminist theory and decolonial thinking, we 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.
We pass as an Institute as a means of infiltration: mimicking the academic model to support subversive ideas. Our mission is to make space for collectively imagining an equitable, multispecies future. With interdisciplinary programming that oscillates between curating exhibitions and directly producing artworks/projects, the Institute of Queer Ecology enacts utopia with a goal towards building a future that prioritizes a (bio)diverse world.
More Info: queerecology.org