Statement & Bio

Artist's Statement
I am a queer trans creative worker who makes “icky yucky funny” art for, with, and about the Earth. Through performance, video, and other art messes, I bring to life the mythical and monstrous Dryad who haphazardly amasses a cult following to save the planet from the perils of imperialism in the Capitalocene era. I strive to bring folks together through my art, my teaching, my conversations, my shared meals, my actions, my movements. In these and other methods, I make audience members cycle through laughter, horror, shock, confused horniness, and deep care and love in order to draw people into the plight of the Dryad.

Central to my work is the juxtaposition I observe in the struggles of myself and fellow queer(ed) people living under Eurocentric systems of oppression, and the struggles of the Earth itself as it survives trauma after trauma from merciless, insatiable colonial powers. When I began to reframe ecological issues as queer issues, seeing the Earth as a universally-consequential Queered Body, it made my encounters with it—-both in and out of my art practice—-more personal and empathetic. This is the seed of inquiry that brought the Dryad into existence; finding a physical form onto which I transpose the micro and macro scales of oppression and othering faced in (and by) the world.

Artist's Biography
Alexandría Zuniga de Dóchas (b. 1995) is a trans-femme latinx creative worker and interdisciplinary artist whose practice responds to imperial and colonial violence on the earth and its inhabitants through a wide range of media including performance, film, installation, and illustration. A large body of work surrounds Zuniga de Dóchas’s alter ego and drag persona, the Dryad, and their existential journey as a queer embodiment of the Earth during the late stages of capitalism. Through the means and material available to them, Zuniga de Dóchas hopes to cultivate a sense of solidarity and kinship across different forms and walks of life, and to challenge Eurocentric notions of social, political, and economic value.

Zuniga de Dóchas attended the University of New Mexico (NM), graduating with an MFA from the Art + Ecology program in the Spring of 2022. Their work has been exhibited and published stateside and internationally--notably being included in the 2022 Venice Biennale--and they have performed in internationally-exhibited and award-winning films. Future exhibitions will be announced as they approach.