Queer Aesthetic Correspondence, A Personal Essay: What’s Natural About Capitalism?
Public opinion on nature today is imbued with cis-hetero-patriarchal ideals, despite it being an inherently queer entity. In general, anything seen as technological progress is branded as masculine, whereas anything organic, haptic, and intuitive is labeled feminine. Aesthetic compartmentalization is a side effect of colonialism to which no one is immune. Labels, aesthetic and otherwise, are built on the foundations of exclusion, on access to capital or the lack thereof. Only those with the means can participate in aesthetically pleasing lives. Additionally, aesthetic presentation dominates perceptions of social worth. Over generations, we have collectively lost the ability to imagine identity outside of capitalism.
A year ago, process-oriented aesthetics became my only option for personal connection to the outside world. I had just started working under the boot of a gigantic resort hotel, where almost none of the employees were properly equipped to handle the demands of a large, historic tourist attraction in the rush of post-pandemic business. The work was both physically and emotionally taxing, and, without a place to rest, our bodies would have stopped working.
The staff residences offered little restoration. The walls were cinder blocks the colour of plaque, the floors were chilly linoleum tile, and we had sports lockers next to our beds. It was common here for the summer staff to lose worrying amounts of weight, because of a lack of food security and a workplace culture that normalized overwork and exhaustion. How could I fit into an environment that lacked personability and celebrated machine-like efficiency? I frequently walked to the grocery store, since the staff residence building lacked a kitchen.
Unexpectedly, what I initially perceived as the cold, damp, and grey landscape of late spring began to transform like a stop-motion movie. During an isolating time in my life, watching the changing of the seasons became my primary comfort. I sought to be in nature without necessity, and I soon began forming social bonds in this organically delineated space between work and home. The natural world itself became queer to me because it offered confidence when all other options were destitute. I focused on the places where I felt welcomed and seen, even if they were sparse and unusual. The boundaries between my internal and external world began to fade, and life became a network of inter-connected happenings. My understanding of aesthetics shifted from distant observation to active correspondence, without the craving for an engulfing marketable subject. The belief that there is a separation between nature and culture is at the root of all exclusionary colonialist policy. Decolonizing our understanding of aesthetics is an endless exercise in dissolving the boarders between internal and external, so that we can correspond and collide with the world through haptic experiences.[1]
In the discourse of dissent, a Third Space is somewhere one is not expected to work, or take care of household chores, and it does not cost money to occupy. It is a place where individuals can connect with their communities and restore their emotional wellbeing. There has been a sharp decline in the existence of Third Spaces in western society, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. While working at this resort, which is located on unceded and commodified Indigenous lands, the only place that held comfort — the only place to spend time without spending money — was nature. The natural world became our collective Third Space, which the resort loomed over like a feudal castle. I was never one for enjoying nature, until it became the only place I could breathe.
Amid a decaying landscape, artists can imagine modes of living alternate to capitalism. Process-oriented aesthetic experiences are inherently tied to queer artistic experience because they actively engage in the dismantling of internalized cultural dichotomies. They challenge us to step away from consumption and into correspondence. In nature, alone or with friends, there is no bought identity. As journalist and author Richard Louv eloquently writes, “We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot know what we do not see. And touch. And hear.”[2] It is imperative to connect to nature both for our own emotional enrichment and wellbeing, and to better serve our communities. In a world that places moral value on individual output, the force of the earth reminds us that there are alternate ways of belonging.
— Riley Small, 2023
[1] Nicola Perullo, “Aesthetics without Objects: Towards a Process-Oriented Aesthetic Perception,” Philosophies, 7 (1), 2022.
[2] Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008).
Riley Small is a returning, third-year Mount Allison University student studying Fine Arts, Art History, and Visual Culture Media Studies.
