Queer Ecology Art & Fieldwork
Audacia’s queer ecology practice engages in thoughtful reflection about how ecology and conservation are enmeshed with existing worldviews that draw heavy-handed parallels between cisheteronormative human and animal genders, sexualities, and communities. In Audacia’s art and fieldwork, they ask questions about natural history and life cycles, and deconstruct western science’s approach to classifying and interpreting non-human beings. Their work invites people focused on ecology and conservation to connect their concerns and empathy to both human and non-human animal communities that are marginalized and not well understood, and shares an expansive curiosity about sex, gender, and ecology with queer and trans humans.
Vernal Pools: A Queer Ecology
a zine and a portal
Vernal Pools: A Queer Ecology is a zine of hand-carved and direct from nature prints, made on acorn-dyed papers and featuring paintings of amphibians, crustaceans, and plants who depend on vernal pools to survive and thrive in New York’s Hudson River Estuary.
The zine is the pilot work of an expansive educational and interpretative queer ecology project that asks the questions: What is natural? Who decides how we value living communities? How can we protect communities that are marginalized, isolated, or not well understood? Amidst these contemplations, the project digs deep into ecological and conservation concerns about the creatures who depend on vernal pools to survive and thrive.
This project was developed through participation in Creature Conserve’s 2025-2026 Mentorship Program.