About the Project

The Queer Natures Project is a collaborative research project at the University of Exeter. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2024-2026). By bringing together artistic practice and academic research in languages, cultures and societies, the project brings topics of queerness and nature into creative and critical dialogue.

Too often, queerness is described as “unnatural”, or a modern invention. In many cases, scholars have responded to this by rejecting nature as a space of significance for queer lives. The Queer Natures project asks: Can we bring queerness into nature, and nature into queer spaces? What knowledges can we draw on to reclaim nature as a queer space? How can we undo preconceived ideas about what “nature” and “queerness” means? We approach these questions through academic and artistic methods, and through a process of experimentation and collaboration.

Below you can learn more about Queer Natures project members and partners.

Project members

A woman with light skin, shoulder length straight dark blonde hair and round glasses is sat on a patterned dining chair by the water on a quayside. She has a small smile, one hand folded under her chin and other draped across her lap. The background is out of focus but across the water there is a row of large red brick buildings.

Dr Ina Linge (she/her): Ina is Associate Professor in German, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Exeter and the project lead for Queer Natures. She is a leading expert in the language, culture and history of gender and sexuality in Germany. In her research, she is particularly interested in how and by whom sexual knowledge was created in early-twentieth-century Germany, and how this knowledge relates to larger political, cultural and social shifts. As part of the Queer Natures project, Ina is working on a book manuscript about the ways in which scientists and writers in early-20^th-century Germany looked at animals and the environment to form new ideas about the social role of LGBTQ+ people. For her previous publications, see her staff profile page. Ina is excited about developing academic research in dialogue with artistic practitioners and LGBTQ+ communities. For example, she was involved in the Adventures in Time and Gender project (2019-2022), which collaborated with young trans and non-binary workshop participants, scriptwriters, voice actors and more to produce a three-part podcast series. Ina was also the academic host for Siân Docksey’s creative fellowship at the University of Exeter (2021), which resulted in a collaborative online performance series called The Sex & Nature Salon. For Queer Ruralities (2023-2024), Ina collaborated with the Cornubian Arts & Science Trust (CAST) and the Intercom Trust to create opportunities for young LGBTQ+ people to engage with art in ways that suit their needs and interests.

Photo by Diana Patient

Siân Dockey, a woman with light skin and long straight black hair with a long fringe is smiling broadly at the camera with her eyes closed. Half her fringe and a section of the hair next to it is platinum blonde and her hair is spread out to the side of her as if caught by wind or if she had been photographed whilst spinning around. She is wearing a cropped yellow sparkly t-shirt with a turtle neck, bright pink and yellow eye makeup and red lipstick. The background is plain but shaded by yellow light on the left and blue light on the right.

Siân Docksey (she/her): Siân is a pole dancing comedian, writer and Artist in Residence on the Queer Natures project. Her artistic practice combining pole dancing with comedy first premiered at Camden People Theatre’s Festival of Feminism, leading to a 5-star run of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and sold-out run at London’s Soho Theatre (watch her special, recorded at the Bill Murray Comedy Club, London here!). Siân is a qualified pole dance instructor and loves to open the world of pole dancing to beginners of all ages, genders and body types, sharing her firm belief that having more fun with movement and playful self-expression is for everyone. She has written about pole dancing and mental health for The Independent, and her work combining pole dancing, comedy and activism has been featured in the Guardian. Siân has previously been nominated for the BBC New Comedy Award-nominated and seen/heard on BBC 3, Channel 4 and BBC Radio Wales’ award-winning What Just Happened?

Siân previously collaborated with Dr Ina Linge on their Creative Fellowship at Arts & Culture University of Exeter in 2020-21, where they created the Sex & Nature Salon. Siân and Ina have also joined forces to design and deliver comedy writing workshops to young people engaged with environmental research and activism at Whitman College in the USA, and to young LGBTQ+ people in Cornwall. Siân’s comedy writing workshops with young people have also been commissioned by Wakefield Literary Festival, Buxton Theatre Digital Youth Festival and English Youth Theatre Brussels.

Photo by Talie Eigeland

A portrait photograph of a person with light skin and short hair wearing a dark blue rain jacket with the hood up and carrying a backpack with a green plastic cover. They are smiling with closed lips. They have a bar eyebrow piercing, a small silver hoop earring and light blue or grey eyes. They are standing in front of a short wooden foot bridge joining two grass banks. In the background you can see a large green field.

S. K. Marley (they/them): S. K. is an Artist in Residence on the Queer Natures project. They are a trans* non-binary creative writer, facilitator and researcher specialising in queering British archaeology and exploring its ecologies. Their interests lie in how creativity can be used as a therapeutic tool, specifically for the LGBTQ+ community. As an Artist in Residence on the Queer Natures project, they have created Our Transcapes project: a psychogeographic tour, and creative exploration of trans* prehistory in Yorkshire. Our Transcapes aims to benefit the wellbeing of trans* people in the UK by disproving current-day myths in British mainstream media around transness – that it is new and unnatural.

A group of 25 people of different ages and genders are wearing high-vis vests and smiling at the camera. They are outside on some tarmac with a tall war-memorial and trees in the background. Some are kneeling and sitting on the floor in front of the group and the rest are standing.

Flock: Flock South West is a contemporary art production agency based in Plymouth, UK. Flock operates as a group of freelancers working together to share work and support each other. As part of Queer Natures, Flock have helped with the production of the project, working together with the artists to fully form their fantastic ideas, and help assist them with the deliverance of their projects.

Queer Natures was supported by Flock associates Tilly Craig (she/her), Rebecca Hand (she/her) Lucy Elmes (she/her), Ashanti Hare (they/them) and Phil Rushworth (she/her).

Photo by Josh Greet featuring Flock associates and volunteers for PEOPLE by LOW PROFILE.

A person with light skin and shoulder length light brown curly hair sits against a white background wearing a white t-shirt. They are smiling with their teeth and have brown eyes, a ring piercing in their right nostril and a tattoo with a moon or sickle shape and some flowers on their left inner bicep.

Dr Chloe Asker (they/them): Chloe is the Impact Evaluator for Queer Natures. Chloe is a neuro-queer academic researcher, curator, podcaster, and creative health facilitator, with a background in human geography and interdisciplinary health research. Since finishing their PhD in 2022, Chloe has worked across several research projects within the disciplines of health geography, medical humanities, public health, arts and health, and allied fields, including Beyond Culture Box and Section 28 and its Afterlives. They have collaborated with a range of non-academic stakeholders, including QueerCircle, BirminghamLGBT, and Arts4Dementia. Their time on Queer Natures has allowed Chloe to challenge normative approaches to impact and evaluation. Through queer and non-binary approaches, they are working with the project lead and the artists in residence to question the categories and assumptions of impact evaluation.

A close up photo of the face and shoulders of a woman with light skin, slightly wavy brown hair and dark eyes with a sandy beach shore in the background. Her hair is swept over her right shoulder as if blown by the wind. She is smiling with her teeth showing and swearing a yellow jumper. The colours of the photo are faded with a slight yellow tint, as if the film has been overexposed on a sunny day.

Gemma Lucas (she/her): Gemma is research assistant on the Queer Natures project. Gemma’s research is situated within geographies of the body, feminist geographies, creative methodologies and medical humanities. The primary focus of her research is developing embodied, creative methods for shame research. Her background is in (interdisciplinary) gender studies, and she is particularly interested in how shame (and lived experience/embodiment more generally) is rooted in intersecting systemic oppressions. She has developed an innovative creative and embodied methodology that involves working with participants one-to-one or in small groups using a variety of practices including gentle, accessible introspective movement practices (based on yoga and DMT) with art activities (such as collaging and body mapping). She calls these workshops ‘Moving Shame’ workshops and she has run them with a wide variety of intersectionally diverse groups including yoga teachers and therapists, medical students and practitioners (with a focus on shame in medical contexts), and for charities including Queer Circle (with a focus on LGBTQ+ experience and shame). She is in the process of further developing and co-facilitating these workshops with Dr Chloe Asker. She draws on her various expertises and experiences of working in collaboration with artists and embodied practitioners in her role as Research Assistant on this project.

Project partners

Lakshnie Hettihewa (she/her): Lakshnie is an experienced psychotherapist and anti-oppressive facilitator. Lakshnie spent almost a decade working in an NHS mental health team and has been in private practice for 3 years. Alongside this work Lakshnie works for the human rights charity brap leading their Anti-racist coaching programme for leaders and developing and facilitating learning programmes to support systemic change on issues of equity. Lakshnie uses her work in therapy and facilitation to explore how oppression affects people and particularly those from marginalised queer global majority backgrounds. This interest has led Lakshnie to run a number of wellbeing and resourcing workshops at queer events such as The Queer Campfire (2023-24), Wanderers of Colour hiking event (2024) and Milton Keynes Pride (2023) to explore with participants how to resource themselves individually and in community and in connection to nature whilst navigating oppressive systems.

A portrait photo of a woman with light skin, dark brown eyes and long, straight reddish brown hair that is half tied back and half draped over her right shoulder. She is wearing pink lipstick and smiling broadly. She is wearing a black polo neck top and standing in front of a light blue door or window frame, which is out of focus.

Mathilde Pavis: Mathilde is a legal adviser specialising in intellectual property, artists’ rights, and contracts. A former Associate Professor in Law at the Universities of Exeter and Reading, she works with creative professionals and organisations to design fair contracts and industry standards that protect artists’ rights and support good working conditions. As part of the Queer Natures project, Mathilde provided legal advice to the research team to support the negotiations between the lead investigator and the artists involved. She helped ensure that everyone understood their rights, had the opportunity to shape the contract to reflect the true nature of their collaboration, and could confidently navigate the language of the agreement.

A photograph of a masculine presenting person against a plain white backgtound. They have light skin, very close cropped brown hair, blue green eyes and a short brown beard and mustache. His body and head is angled slightly towards the right of the image but he is looking directly at the camera with their eyes. They are wearing a yellow, blue and white abstract watercolour paint style patterned collared shirt and a dangly earing of a half peeled banana which is bright yellow and white.

Fredde Lanke (they/he): Fredde Lanka is a gay Swedish proto-bear illustrating smutty, silly comics for the queer gamer generation who don’t read Foucault. A university lecturer and youth worker with his own queer art school in London (Queer Youth Art Collective), Christian moms have warned that Lanka is teaching the children an ‘asses up lifestyle’.

Rich gays who work in marketing are also a fan. Lanka has produced murals and illustrations for Youtube, Google and Conde Nast. A retiring erotic ceramicist, his pots have been sold at Liberty Department Store in London. And Trixie Mattel owns one apparently.

Fred’s visual art style is synonymous with nightlife and drag cabaret scenes in London, Birmingham and Stockholm, capturing the community at its most vibrant and diverse.

He also draws on the porno-politico-surrealism of Keith Haring, the heavy demonic blackwork of Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and the naive, brash comic studies of Nina Hemingsson.

Fredde created the illustrated banner for the project and the avatars for Ina Linge and artists in residence Sian Docksey and S.K Marley.