“It's the only queer utopia that exists in America anymore” - Erik Holsten
If anyone were to look inside my suitcase, they would have thought I was auditioning to portray Nomi Malone on a reboot of camp classic, Showgirls, not packing for a five-day camping techno festival. I took a deep sigh of worry, holding up a fuschia boa in front of me: to bring or not to bring? Seeing my dilemma, Erik looked over and laughed, “I wouldn’t. You do not wanna get clocked for littering the campgrounds with your shedding chicken feathers. Trust me,” before turning around and neatly organizing his clothes. 2024 marks Erik Holsten’s fourth year attending Honcho Campout, an annual queer techno festival located on the premise of Four Quarters Sanctuary, in Artemas, Pennsylvania. As we approached the site after a four-hour car ride from Philadelphia, I noticed the signal bars on my phone started disappearing one by one. It was my first year attending Honcho and I was nervous. There is not much about the festival on their website, with only one phrase to describe the whole event, “Honcho Campout is a queer gathering in nature that celebrates those doing the heavy lifting in their local scenes.” Before I could ask any more questions, Erik turned to the backseat and uttered to me, “Put your phone down and look around. It’s the only queer utopia that exists in America anymore.”
Rolling my window down as we waited for the check-in line, I could hear the music buzzing through the entire car frame. The rich sweetness enveloped in a refreshing green scent of Cucumber Magnolia, densely covering the Land, snuck its way into our car as we all took a deep breath in and finally relaxed after the long journey. All the cars in front of us were packed with people as Honcho offers a discounted parking rate if you carpool. In the distance was a stream populated with people already enjoying their first dip–all nude to bathe their skin in the dazzling water that the Land blessed them with. Above are striking neon jellyfish made out of recycled fabrics, as if it was an extended limb of the trees caressing us, that would later glow in the dark.
As we found a spot near the rainbow bridge, connecting the two camping grounds, and unpacked all of our camping gear from the car, a sign, scattered throughout the property, caught my eyes: “Four Quarters is a leave-no-trace venue.” Though I have never felt more welcomed by the embrace of my queer community, it is clear that the beautiful Land surrounding us is not our home–we are guests to the floras and faunas that ornamented the Land. There were more trash stations present than porta-potties, with staff members constantly reminding everyone to clean up after themselves. The following five days at Honcho Campout is the only time in my recent memory where I did not touch my phone a single time. It was then that I first truly understood what queerness meant.
How does queerness relate to nature?
Being a “leave-no-trace” venue is essential to Honcho Campout’s queer identity. Queerness here is neither a marker for self-identity nor sexual orientation but rather a culture rooted in a rich history of anti-normative frameworks. In this light, queering nature and ecology breaks down the rigid labels of what is natural and unnatural that our modern society has assigned to materiality. Within queer ecology, the term ‘nature’ itself falls under a colonial framework since it is socially constructed to define material beings and phenomena outside of human creation, centering us in the middle of the discourse. This anthropocentric view of the environment forces the millions of lives in nature to align with our selfish standards and deems them an unlimited resource for us to exploit. In reality, we are the ones constantly invading and looting their homes, leaving no nourishment in return. Queer ecology is essential to help our fight against the possibly bleak future of environmental degradation.
What Can We Learn About Nature from Honcho Campout?
Foregrounding queer ecology as an important framework in their events is one of many elements that makes Honcho, a DJ trio consisting of Aaron Clark, Clark Price, and George d'Adhemar, an unstoppable queer force. Originally from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Honcho organizes parties as a safe space for the queer community throughout the nation in big cities such as New York City, Chicago, and New Orleans. At the heart of the campout is the “Queer Fam Fund”, a donor-funded initiative aiming to “reduce cultural and financial barriers that hinder our recipients from the festival experience,” advocating for diversity to combat the heteronormative, colonial systems that obstruct queer and BIPOC individuals the chance to interact with nature for leisure and recreation.
The attentiveness that the Honcho team has for its attendees extends especially to how they treat the Land on which the festival takes place. Only beginning with the strict anti-littering policy, Honcho Campout provides attendees with a pamphlet detailing how to treat the space with care, including reduced plastic use, maximum shower times, and anti-drug guidelines with accompanying sober spaces. Though these guidelines are not too strictly enforced, to break them is to deny yourself and others the true queer utopia that Honcho has worked hard to curate. After almost a decade in operation, many fans have contributed with their own queering nature pamphlets such as local floras and faunas guide, mushroom foraging trails, and no-go zones where the local ecosystems are in distress, many of which are included the self-published zine and podcasts, including “Campout Best Practices”. By the river hangs my favorite life-size banner that reads, “Don’t douche with river water,” avoiding the threat of human fecal matter to the living organisms within the stream. All of the guidelines given stem from Honcho's mindfulness practices to root the festival goers as one with the ecosystems surrounding them, respectful of the natural laws that govern the Land. As the need for recreational activities in nature rises in our post-pandemic society, it is pivotal that we learn from the way Honcho Campout and its participants treat nature so that we do not further exploit their resources, depleting them of their homes and nourishment.
As I dipped my toe in the refreshing stream that ran through the middle of the campout at 7 A.M. on our last day, I can not help but smile at the hundreds of free, queer bodies down the stream from me. Though I was reluctant to his statement initially, Erik was right. This might be the only queer utopia left in the United States. Queer not as a form of self-identity but queerness as a community–a framework to fight the colonial systems of knowledge that haunt our interaction with each other and the beautifully complex ecological systems that welcome us into their homes daily.
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Duc is currently a student at Stanford University pursuing his Master's in Environmental Communications and Bachelor's in Art History. He is interested in the intersectionality between art and climate, especially analyzing these fields through a queer framework.
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