Queer/Earth with Marin de Heij

“Gathering Ecology” with Marin de Heij

QUEER/EARTH is a collaborative workshop series, making space for new narratives on queerness and urban nature, through the eyes of different Rotterdam based artists and makers -

🍂 About this workshop

In “Gathering Ecology” we draw a parallel between “The Carrier Bag” and neurodivergent thinking and explore how neurodiversity can help us in connecting with each other as humans and more-than-humans.

Guided by visual artist Marin de Heij, we will connect to the land through an audiotour around the island and learn to see through the eyes of a gatherer. With our gathered materials we will craft our own “Carrier Bags” together at Buitenplaats Brienenoord and explore the overlap between neurodivergence and “The Carrier Bag Theory” by Ursula K. Le Guin.

🍂 About "The Carrier Bag Theory"
For a long time, human evolution has been explained by the use of the spear, a tool for hunting and killing, for conquering and domination, a linear and typical thing, as the basis for human behaviour. This has shaped the way we look at humanity and its relationship with the earth. However, humans are dependent on vegetables, seeds, nuts, roots, berries for sixty to eighty percent of their diets. Things that are gathered.

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction Ursula K. Le Guin tells the story of The Carrier Bag; a thing to put things in, to gather. She provides a new narrative, stories of community and sharing and gathering, of messiness and confliction, of the untypical.

🌞 About the artist

Marin is an artist, a storyteller, a crafter, a gatherer, a researcher, an organiser, a connector. Through their work they aim to make visible the interconnectedness of lives, cultures, and species and nurture a more-than-human society and community.

Exploring the relationships between humans and humans and humans and nature and how these can be challenged in relation to the white-western, capitalist, and hyper-individualistic ideologies that many of us grew up with.

🍂 Accesibility info:

Eiland van Brienenoord is accessible by car until the entrance, there is a wide bridge that crosses to the island, where most of the paths are hard sand/gravel. Toilets are available at Buitenplaats Brienenoord, but are unfortunately not wheelchair accessible. The tour will be partly led by an audio guided recording.

Free community passes available, reach out to us through email or DM

gardenofqueerdom@gmail.com