Wild WaysidesWild Waysides: Queer Ecologies and the New Natural

What does it mean to be natural—and who belongs in the landscape?

Wild Waysides: Queer Ecologies and the New Natural brought together 2SLGBTQ+ artists and researchers exploring radical intersections of queerness, ecology, and creative practice. Curated by Pearl Van Geest and James Fowler (SweetThings), the exhibition featured multisensory installations, field recordings, performance documentation, and visual artworks that reimagined nature through a queer lens.

The project challenged binaries, decolonized landscapes, and amplified alternative ways of knowing—offering new readings of nature as a space of transformation, intimacy, and relation. Many of the works were developed through the Queer Up North Artist Residency in Temagami, Northern Ontario, where participating artists engaged in land-based research, sound, movement, and storytelling practices shaped by both queer experience and ecological urgency.

Wild Waysides embodied the spirit of queer ecology: shifting the margins, unsettling norms, and revealing the wild within the everyday.

Participating Artists

Francisco Alvarez, Schem Rogerson Bader, Jackson Bailey, Kristy Boyce, Terry Dame, James Fowler, David Frazier, atlas gifford, Charlie Hunter, Lou Losier, John Rubino, Walt Segers, Cai Sepulis, Christina Bernard Singer, Pearl Van Geest, and Mike Wyeld.

Presented in partnership with the Nipissing Regional Curatorial Collective and produced with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Exhibition Dates:
White Water Gallery, North Bay — January 3–February 15, 2025
Red Head Gallery, Toronto — August 6–16, 2025