This is part three of a four-part series put together by Centrum and Cleo Woelfle-Erskine and July Hazard to ask “what is queer ecology?” of climate scientists, ecologists, choreographers, poets, and creatives who each share unique perspectives on how queer and trans identities can and do play important roles in shifting the way we think about the sciences and our relations with the more-than-human. This project is part of Woelfle-Erskine and Hazard’s 2019-2020 Centrum Northwest Heritage residencies, made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts.
In this conversation, Hazard and Woelfle-Erskine speak with Jocine Velasco about the urgency and many threads of exploring questions around queer ecologies. They reflect on the relationships between climate and social behaviors, working with and in acknowledgement of Indigenous, prison, and climate justice issues, and an array of experiences and questions that inform their work.
Jocine Velasco immigrated from the Philippines with her family to the gulf coast of Florida when she was a child. Velasco was an urban farmer in New Orleans before began pursuing a Masters in landscape architecture at University of Washington where she is working on a thesis which reimagines Puget Sound prairie ecological restoration through an anti-colonial and abolition framework. Velasco writes poetry, does watercolor and collage whenever she can.