The Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) is an ever-evolving collaborative organism that seeks to bring peripheral solutions to environmental degradation to the forefront of public consciousness. IQECO projects are interdisciplinary but unified and grounded in the theoretical framework of Queer Ecology, an adaptive practice concerned with interconnectivity, intimacy, and multispecies relationality. The collective works to overturn the destructive human-centric hierarchies by imagining an equitable, multispecies future. The Institute of Queer Ecology was founded in 2017 by Lee Pivnik while he was studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. It is co-directed by Nicolas Baird, who joined the project shortly after its inception, and has continued to steer its growth and focus.

IQECO is a project of futurism, demanding that we meet the climate crisis collectively with ideas that remake our relationships with nature. Queer communities are uniquely positioned to lead on climate adaptation through embodied strategies already inherent or familiar to queer experiences. On an individual level, queer lives are mutable: we understand change and transformation in intensely personal ways. On a collective level, queer community is mutualistic: 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. Through our artistic production, we aim to share this world of transformation and cooperation as strategies for environmental adaptation and ecological survival.

queerecology.org
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Every year Light Work’s Urban Video Project invites a video artist or collective to create a new piece that will be projected at our UVP Everson site. The commission includes a stipend and generous staff support.