Pastures: An Exploration of an Aging Queer Woman

This paper accompanies the culmination my installation entitled, “Pastures.” “Pastures” was featured at The 519 community centre in Toronto, Canada in May 2023. It showcased pastoral cyanotype patches on denim and leather jackets, inspired by queer DIY punk motifs, nature, and the aging queer woman body. In this paper, I expand on themes of aging as a queer woman, including issues of invisibility and irrelevancy, transitory environments, and the nature of space, memory, and mourning. I also detail the artistic journey and reasoning that led to the final iteration of the “Pastures” installation, and its possibilities for the future.
One of the many questions “Pastures” asks is how environments resonate with, and respond to, the personal. “Pastures” is inspired by my own journey as a queer woman and my search for a sense of belonging, vibrancy, and worth. In conversation with a theoretical framework that includes, visual arts practice, queer ecology and environments, and queer aging, “Pastures” central question posits: In a world that pushes queer woman bodies to the periphery, or pasture, where does my body belong?