Category Archives: Symposia

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EcoSex and the City: Exploring the Earth as Lover

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June 14 -18, 2023

Performance Space New York

EcoSex and the City: Exploring the Earth as Lover

Manhattan, New York

A Co-Created Symposium & Performance Art Happening with Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle & Friends 

For more information, updates and symposium passes go here

Join us for a three-day multi-disciplinary gathering to explore our relationships with the environment and social justice, engage in human/non-human collaboration, critique ideologies and create new sexualities. Let’s examine if our “bodies” end at our skin or are part of something much more complex. This unique gathering includes paradigm-shifting panels, ritual, storytelling, poetry, music, films, ancestors, queer glam, keynote speeches, and creative environmental activist strategies. Experience eco-burlesque, learn about the science, and enjoy soil-idarity, conceptual art, and abundant sensual delights. This happening will be Beth & Annie’s 9th symposium and the first on the East Coast. Mingle with diverse life forms and various communities of artists, scholars, sex workers, queers, fashionistas, plants, spores, water drops, clouds, and more, more, more. If desired, dress in costumes inspired by the Earth, and bring your biome clouds. What happens when we posit the Earth as our lover? We invite you to get your ecosexual gaze on and find out. Everyone is invited.

Photos by Lydia Daniller

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Photos by Annie Forrest

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Eileen Myles (Poet, Author) – Compost Sexual Kevin O’Connor & Montana Summers (Members of Sweet Labour Art Collective) – Becoming Walnut Tree: Becoming Forest Duskin Drum (Artist, Scholar) -A Diagram of Loving Trees Ewelina Jarosz & Justyna Górowska (Artists and Scholars): Launching the Hydrosexual Movement in Art–An Ecosexual Offspring, Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, and Linda M. Montano
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Program View pdf

EcoSex and the City program

 

Playing with Fire Symposium

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🔥 October 7-9.
We will explore the pleasures, perils & politics of fire through art, theory, practice, and activism.
October 7, 8th and 9th. DARC 108 CLICK HERE to view supporting documentation.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Everyone is welcome. The symposium is free.

All events take place at the UCSC DARC building. Google map link here. It's a big campus, be sure to follow our link! There are many food options for purchase on campus, have a look at the cafe link here.  We've also got a great link with directions to the DARC building here. You can find everything else you need below, but if you have any additional questions, shoot us an email at [email protected], and we'll be happy to answer.

Photos by Lydia Daniller

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Photographs by Justin Hoover

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Photographs by Saul Villegas

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Photographs by Jaren Bonillo

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SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

WHERE: All events are at UCSC in DARC #108 (Digital Arts Research Center), except where noted

Friday, October 7

   
 
Honoring and Celebrating our Environmental Art Ancestors:
a Tribute to Newton and Helen Harrison
6-6:30pm
Gather

Manifestadora del altar– Juanita Mora-Malerva
Video: Linda Montano (9 minutes)
6:30-7:30pm
Welcome–Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle

Ritual for the Departed & a Sevda–Nada Miljkovic
Kaddish–Ruby Barnett
Metabolism is the Fire that Burns Within Us–Lauren Bon
Poem–Ed Shanken
Open Mic– Share your stories
Closing- Beth & Annie 
7:30-8pm
Eat, drink and be grateful

Saturday, October 8

At UCSC in DARC #108 (Digital Arts Research Center)

Time  Event
10-11:00am
Morning Gathering

Breakfast bites, coffee, tea
11:00am-12pm
A Warm Welcome 

Professor Beth Stephens–artist, filmmaker, and
Annie Sprinkle–ecosexual artist 
12-1:30pm
Panel # 1 — Smoldering Embers

Becca Fenwick, Director of UCSC’s CITRIS Program. “A Drone’s Eye View of the UCNRS”
Cláudio Bueno, Assistant Professor of Art, UC Santa Cruz. “Curupira; The Red Head”
Kim TallBear, Professor of Native Studies, University of Alberta.
“A Sharpening of the Already Present: Apocalypse and Radical Hope”
1:30-2:30pm
Lunch
2:30-4pm
Panel #2 — Art and Artists On Fire

Michael and Heather Llewellyn– Artists and Co-Creators.
 “Creating the FOREST⇌FIRE Exhibition”
Laura Smith-Fillmore – Artist and Translator.
Fire: the Wà:šiw word for wildfire is yengi’iši’ (the plural of ‘running’) or literally ‘everything is running’
Tracy Brown–Artivist and African American Art & Culture Center Fellow–“Choose Your Punctuation from the Fire”
Justin Hoover– Artist, Director of the Chinese Historical   “Fire as Practice in Chinese American Traditional Culture” 
4-4:30pm
Break
4:30-6pm
Panel #3 — Flaming Desires

Courtney Desiree Morris, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley.  “Fire Wedding Orishas” with Martîn Perna (sound design and saxophone) & Sequoia Jane Morris-Perna (firebaby).
K-Haw of the Rural Alchemy Workshop (R.A.W.) “Any Body Can Be a Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene,”
Lady Monster, Eco-burlesque Artist, “Bringing the Camp to the Fire as the Quadra-Flame Twirl-inator”
Nicole Rudolph-Vallerga, Artist, “The Phoenix Letters, A Ritual Offering. 

6:00-7:30pm
Outdoor Dinner & A Sound Performance

Anna Friz & Gabriel Saloman“Between the Fires”
7:30 sharp!-9:30pm
Feel the Heat — Live Art and Film

(Performances are listed in random order and subject to change)

Julie Weitz. “Prayer for Burnt Forest” (Film, 14 mins)
Courtney Desiree Morris “Sopera de Yemaya” (Film, 20 mins) with sound design and saxophone performance by Martin Perna
Vin Seaman as LOL McFiercen–Mistrexx of Ceremonies:
Roxi Power–“Zig Zag: Fire Poems”
K-Haw–“Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene: Fire Ride with Me”
Shelly Truman– “Surviving”
Spyce– “Songs to Light our Fires”
Larry Bogad– “A Word From Our Sponsors”
Lady Monster– “Ignite; a Dance”
Justin Hoover–“Divine Conduits” 

Sunday, October 9

At UCSC in DARC #108 (Digital Arts Research Center)

Time  Event
10-11am
Morning Gathering

Breakfast bites, coffee, tea
11am-1pm
Panel #4 — Firefighter Stories

Julie Weitz, My Golem as a Wildland Firefighter
Brandon Smith (Director of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program).
Benny Fillmore (Elder Wašišiw and Former Hotshot Firefighter) in conversation with
Helen Fillmore (Environmental Scientist and Former Hotshot Firefighter).
1-1:45pm
Lunch
1:45-2:30pm
Community Open Mike

(Sign up for a 5 minute slot)
2:30-3:00pm
Final Comments & Closing

Beth & Annie
FOOD

Food available for purchase around campus, or feel free to bring your own.

PARKING

There is a fee to park in the UCSC parking lot. Our beloved parking enforcement team is extremely vigilant. Please follow the link here to avoid an expensive ticket.  

LODGING

We want you to be warm, comfortable, and cozy. Here are some places to stay:

Camping: The Redwood Resort has free camping for symposium participants and their close guests. This includes shower and restroom facilities. They're great friends of Annie and Beth, and are co-sponsoring this event! Please keep in mind that they're a 40 minute drive from UCSC. The map link is here. If you want to use this option, please contact Beth Stephens [email protected]

You may also like Henry Cowell State Park. They don't have a website, but the map link and phone number is here.

Hostels: There are lots of options here.

Hotels: A list of all hotels in Santa Cruz can be found here.

We love staying at The Ocean Pacific Lodge. They're offering a 10% discount for our symposium, just mention that you're going to UCSC when you book. We've had a great time there in the past, and it's a nice mid-priced hotel. A google map is here. For a high end experience, we recommend the Dream Inn. Their location is right next to the ocean, with incredible views.

 

Heartfelt thanks to our collaborators friends and sponsors

Dean's Fund for Excellence and the UCSC Office of Research

Thank you to the Ocean Pacific Lodge, UCSC catering, and India Joez. Thanks also to the incredible technical team of the Digital Arts Research Center.

Special thanks to our generous, amazing hosts: Donna Haraway, Shelly Errington, Nada Miljkovic, Kyle McKinley & Jennifer Gonzalez.

Our dear friends who gave their time to help us with this event: Scott Brandt, Dean Solt, ARI, Center for Science and Justice, Center for Arts and Science, Redwood Resort, Feminist Studies, Jennifer Gonzalez, Jordan Phillibert, Lindsay Moffat, Rachel Smith, Cowell College--Alex, Kristin Grace Erickson, Julie Rogge, Dr. Gary Greenberg.

Thanks also to the amazing UCSC staff.

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Thank you everyone who gave their time and resources to help us with this event:

ARI, Center for Science and Justice, Center for Arts and

Science, Redwood Resort,

The amazing UCSC staff.

Thanks UCSC catering,

Thanks again to Nada Miljkovic’s KSQID.

Extra special kudos to Rogge Design for the poster designs.

Thank you all for coming!

Seedbed poster

SEEDBED: A SOIL SYMPOSIUM

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This multimedia symposium took place from April 26-27, 2018 at the UCSC Fram & Garden. In collaboration with the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (CAVS), the E.A.R.T.H. Lab hosted this interdisciplinary event. It featured visual artwork installed throughout campus, performances, interactive activities and meals. Panels were held in the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn exploring a diverse range of topics from microbes to waste management, labor and farming; the magic composting and soil science. Seedbed explored how climate change and human industry have endangered our topsoils – rendering it deadly- as well as the amazing life sustaining potential of what we call “dirt.” 

For more information on this event click here.

 
Environmentalism Outside the Box

Environmentalism Outside the Box: An Ecosex Symposium

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This symposium took place in and around the Digital Arts Research Center on the UCSC Campus from May18-19, 2017. 

E.A.R.T.H. Lab Presents!

Join us for a multi-disciplinary gathering to explore our relationships with the environment and social justice, engage in human/non-human collaboration, critique ideologies and debate new sexualities. What happens when we see the Earth as our lover? Let’s examine where our “bodies” end and “nature” begins.

For more  information click here.