LET'S GO OUTSIDE! For this new creation, Corentin JPM Productions takes you into the wilderness—or whatever one may choose to call it.
I HATE NATURE is an invitation into queer reflections on identity, belonging, and our relationship to the natural world. An untangled maze of ropes becomes a shifting landscape where bodies, stories, and environments continuously entangle and redefine one another.
Homosexuality and nature have long shared a complicated history of contradiction and resemblance. The legitimization of queer lives throughout the twentieth century often relied on sciences that were medical, psychological, and/or sociological. In the process, queer bodies and desires were dissected, scrutinized, and positioned outside the realm of the natural. Thus emerged the myth of the urban queer: the little gay boy and his chosen family, somehow unfit for the wilderness.
I HATE NATURE examines nature as a contested idea rather than a fixed reality. Depending on who you ask, nature can be order, morality, wilderness, escape, liberation, or something to conquer. Capitalism has transformed it into a commodity, selling us forests in sprays, candles, and curated experiences while distancing us from the real thing. The divide between human and nature emerged through our attempts to domesticate, control, and reproduce the world around us. For queer communities, nature has long been both refuge and battleground: a space of freedom, desire, and connection, but also a tool of exclusion through notions of the "unnatural."
If nature is a construct shaped by culture, power, and desire, who can claim to belong in it? Why does beauty function as such a powerful strategy for survival? Why is the human eye so obsessed with finding order in chaos?
In this new performance, we invite you to question and experience different forms of belonging within so-called Nature.
Leave behind your pine-scented candles, your crystals, and your fantasies of untouched landscapes.
Join us for the real deal. Let's go outside.
● Corentin JPM Productions is a Norwegian performing arts company established in 2019. CJPM Productions works with queer themes, focusing strongly on topics related to archival practices and sexual health. CJPM Productions is extremely proud to contribute to conversations surrounding HIV/AIDS, shedding light on modern aspects of the matter by creating scenic works such as +-, Birds of Ill Omen, and Diwriziennet-Lost Genealogies, as well as participating in the annual Visual AIDS symposium at MoMA, NYC.
Our practice as two scenographers and a choreographer at the core of the company has led us to various expressions, driven by a vibrant need for materialities to narrate and accompany our research. We are thrilled to try something new—something outdoors.
Time and location: Coming soon!