The Fifth Element
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This July I'm in South Korea as one of four international participants in The Fifth Element, a month-long research residency organized by the curatorial collective set in Seoul.
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The project explores queer ecology through shared research, cooking, field trips, workshops, conversations, and encounters with artists, researchers, curators, and local ecologies across Korea.

Rather than seeing nature as something pure, harmonious, or simply in need of protection, The Fifth Element asks how we might rethink our relationships with landscapes, bodies, and more-than-human life through ideas of decay, contamination, transformation, interdependence, and non-normative forms of kinship. The project is particularly interested in developing these conversations from Korea's own ecological, cultural, and historical contexts.
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For me, this residency is an opportunity to deepen my ongoing research into wetlands, sacred landscapes, folklore, ritual, and queer ways of relating to the more-than-human. Over the coming weeks I'll be listening carefully to the stories emerging from Korean landscapes, meeting artists and researchers, visiting ecological sites—including Jeju Island—and gathering impressions, information and conversations that may eventually become a new work or feed into future projects in South Korea.
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I'm honoured to share this experience alongside quori theodor (Brooklyn), Lyndsey Walsh (Berlin), and Hallie Ayres (Brooklyn).
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Public Program

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On 25 July, the project will also host a public presentation day at LDK Roomservice in Seoul, with workshops, artist talks, and other shared formats. I’ll be taking part alongside the other invited participants and local collaborators.

Location: LDK Roomservice, 653-4 Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

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Thank you Arts Council Korea (ARKO), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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