Queer Ecologies Garden
Alice Austen House Museum
2022-2023
The Alice Austen House and its surrounding waterfront park are a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history, centering on the 55 year relationship between Alice Austen and her life partner Gertrude Tate, providing an important window into pre-Stonewall LGBTQ+ history and enriching our understanding of the important life and work of Alice Austen.
The Queer Ecologies Garden contains plants that exhibit gender fluidity, expressing a wide spectrum of sex identifiers and myriad of reproductive strategies. Many plants are hermaphroditic, some are self- fertile and reproduce on their own, and others might shift gender depending on their external environments. The garden was designed with the Museum’s educational programs in mind.
The garden is a meeting site for GSA students from across Staten Island the museum’s LGBTQ+ Photographic Storytelling program, a photography-centered program where students and seniors engage in storytelling workshops.
Press & Links