Nature Was Always Queer

Come down to the fair for a Sunday-afternoon celebration of the wondrous world of queer ecology!

Thinking through the lens of queer ecology allows us to see our world the way it is - endlessly possible and boundary-free.

Our panel of wonderful writers and practitioners are here to introduce and share their work - from the scientific to the creative, from access to nature for queer communities, to the wider narratives around queerness and liberation in the non-human world - and the naturally human. They will be chaired by Frances Cannon, editor of the anthology Queer Flora, Fauna and Funga.

Our speakers:

Carle Gent is an artist from Bexhill-on-sea, living in Glasgow.

She has exhibited her sculptures, songs, vehicles and printouts at Glasgow Women’s Library, Wysing Arts Centre, Jupiter Woods, Fruitmarket, the De La Warr Pavilion, and the Museum of English Rural Life.

Last year, they convened the Study Day on Biological Exuberance at Hospitalfield, Arbroath - a weekend of dance, talks, video, sound and performance looking at gay and trans animal life. She is a current practice-based DPhil candidate at the Ruskin School of Art asking how artmaking can meaningfully assist us in recognising the queer and internal lives of non-human animals.

Daisy Hildyard is a novelist from the north of England who writes about the environment and nonhumans. Her books are The Second Body (Fitzcarraldo Editions), an essay, and Hunters in the Snow (Jonathan Cape / Vintage) and Emergency (Fitzcarraldo Editions), two novels.

Jenny Chamarette is a writer, curator and cultural critic shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay and Nature Chronicles Prizes and longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. Their essays have appeared in This Allotment and Queerphoria, and they regularly collaborate with artists and galleries on interpretive and critical writing. Jen is also Commissioning Co-Editor for the MAI Feminism and Visual Culture imprint of Punctum Books. When not writing they are usually in the garden or the allotment.

Nish Doshi is a dreamer, community builder, researcher, and facilitator whose work centres around relationality, decoloniality, and care. They work across various ‘isms’ of the social justice world, finding joy in understanding how everything is connected. Currently they are working on ‘Beyond the Machine’ - an online series on Tech Justice in the UK.

Our chair:

Franky (Frances) Cannon is the Reviews Editor for Poetry Wales, a Research Associate of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, an editorial reader for The Kenyon Review, and an affiliated scholar at Kenyon College. She is the author and illustrator of several books: Walter Benjamin Reimagined (MIT Press, 2019), Fling Diction (Green Writers Press, 2024), Vernal Thaw: A Novel of Love at a Slant (Set Margins’ Press, 2026), and Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga (Valiz Press, 2026). Her work can also be found in journals and magazines, including The New York Times. Franky curates the digital publication queerflora.org. Read more at: frankyfrancescannon.com

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