QUEER ROCKS

Simon Olmetti's practice focuses on queering nature, particularly through alternative spirituality. He is particularly drawn to liminal spaces like forests, stone circles and other places connected to some form of spirituality and mythology. He considers queering as an act of (re)appropriation and transformation, in order to free it from centuries of patriarchal oppression. His research is guided by the use of queer ecology and eco-feminism, together with neomaterialist and post-natural notions of matter as vibration, energy and intrinsically queer. The aim is to reclaim the use of the natural landscape, recuperating the past in order to create new possibilities and futures, through photography, drawing, sculptural forms and installations.

Olmetti collects rocks and pebbles from his walks, cleans and paints them, transforming them into alien, camp, unnatural objects. He then takes them back to nature, to the forest or along the ancient Icknield Way (a pilgrim path for many centuries), in order to queer the space around them and in doing so, to queer nature itself.