An iteration of Everything is Migrating—a project supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council—Zulu Padilla’s Queer Ecologies continues an intimate investigation of movement, desire, and kinship across species and geographies. Drawing from his lived experience as a migrant and from the migratory patterns of neotropical birds that cross borders freely, Padilla creates site-responsive installations that blur distinctions between natural and constructed worlds, queer and ecological spaces.
In this new iteration, presented as part of his SoMad residency for Mad World, Padilla traces bird flight and queer cruising within Prospect Park—two forms of navigation that evade fixed identities and challenge imposed boundaries. The work draws from photographs taken in these secluded spaces, where remnants like decomposing condoms, feathers, and plant matter become layered within large-scale collages and sculptural assemblages. These materials coalesce into organic forms that suggest nests, altars, or portals—structures of refuge, desire, and transformation.
Inspired by the Queer Ecologies Garden at the Alice Austen House, the installation honors gardens and green spaces as historic sanctuaries for queer communities, while also inviting reflection on the interdependence of all living beings. By intertwining the human and avian, Queer Ecologies evokes a shared multiplicity—each body, whether feathered or flesh, carries stories of migration, vulnerability, and becoming.
