Queering the Wye
New Projects & What's Next
Field Note I: We begin in the Woods
We’re inviting LGBTQIA people to join us for a new cycle of slow, land‑based creative sessions.
Our summer sessions are on 21 and 22 August,
and our autumn sessions on 24 and 25 September,
each running 10am to 3pm in the Forest of Dean.
You’re welcome to join one session or all of them.
Archive of Lived Experience
We are developing a rural archive of lived experiences for LGBTQIA+ poeple in the Wye Valley. Please get in touch if you would like to help us.
Queering the Wye is a rural creative project that brings LGBTQIA people together to explore belonging, creativity and connection across the Wye Valley and the borderlands. It began in 2021 as a commission for Wye Valley River Festival and has grown into a long-term programme supporting queer visibility, wellbeing and community-led creativity in rural places.
Over the past four years, Queering the Wye has reached more than ten thousand people through workshops, performances, community events and creative projects. This has included delivering Monmouth’s first Pride, collaborating with Craftspace on national touring work, creating community archives, running youth sessions, hosting fireside gatherings, leading creative walks and developing land based workshops that centre queer ecology and lived experience.
What it is
Queering the Wye is an ongoing rural queer ecology project. It holds space for LGBTQIA people to meet, make and imagine together through creative practice, land based sessions and community publishing.
Why it exists
Queering the Wye exists to reduce isolation, strengthen community and create spaces where queer lives and stories can take root in the landscapes we call home. It offers gentle, supported spaces where people can arrive as they are and feel part of something shared.
How long it has been running
Queering the Wye began as a seed of an idea in 2021, with the Wye Valley River Festival, and has grown through seasonal cycles of workshops, events, and partnerships. Over the years, it has become a recognised part of rural queer life in the region, reaching thousands of people through various strands of work.
The rural queer ecology angle
By looking at landscapes through a queer lens, we see that diversity and fluidity are the norm, not the exception. Our work is grounded in rural queer ecology. We explore how queerness, land and community meet, and how creative practice can help us re-author our relationships with place, with each other and with ourselves. Sessions often take place outdoors or in community spaces close to the land, using slow, accessible and trauma informed methods.
The connection to Field Notes
Queering the Wye is shaped and led by Aimee Blease Bourne and the Wye Valley River Festival team. Aimee is shortlisted for the National Diversity Awards as an LGBTQ Role Model in recognition of her work supporting rural queer communities. This nomination reflects the care, creativity and community building at the heart of the project.
In 2026, Queering the Wye moved from Wye Valley River Festival into Field Notes / Nodiadau Maes CIC. This shift allows us to centre queerness more deeply in the organisational structure of Queering the Wye and to build a long-term home for rural queer creativity and community publishing.
Field Notes / Nodiadau Maes CIC now holds Queering the Wye as one of its core projects, supporting it to grow with clarity, safety and intention.
Queering the Wye continues to evolve through partnerships, community involvement and land based creative practice.