E.A.R.T.H.Lab SF

West Virginia Research Trip
2024-03-15 - 2024-03-25
Beth will be traveling home to conduct film research, work on her archives, and catch up with friends and family.

St. Joseph’s Art Society with Guillermo Gómez-Peńa
2024-03-27 18:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | St Joseph’s Art Society, 1401 Howard St, San Francisco, CA, United States
Pocha Nostra 2024: Living Dioramas for a Museum of the Future

March 27, 2024
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Presented by Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation

Wednesday, Mar 27:
6-9 pm PDT

1401 Howard St, San Francisco, CA

Pricing varies by ticket type.

Event Details:

During this special evening, Gómez-Peña and his closest collaborators re-imagine his living archives, an over 50 year body of performance work. Audiences will experience and interact with an immersive setting that has been conceptualized especially for the unique site of Saint Joseph’s and in response to the themes, concerns and hopes for our times.

Doors 6pm // Performance 7pm
No one will be turned away for lack of funds. To inquire about sliding scale options, please email info@saintjosephsartssociety.com by March 25th, 2024.
Featured guest artists:

Balitronica
The EcoSexuals
Sarah Stolar (New Mexico)
Pita Zapot (Tijuana)
Francesca Carol Rolla (Venice, Italy)
Justin Hoover
Bob Webb
Violeta Luna
Juan Ybarra

Produced by Emma Tramposch & Justin Hoover.

Founded in 1993, La Pocha Nostra is an interdisciplinary arts organization and 501-c3 non-profit that provides a support network and forum for artists of various disciplines, generations, gender complexities and ethnic backgrounds.
La Pocha Nostra is known for participatory performance installation environments and pioneered the concept of “living dioramas” as a major contribution to the field of live art.
La Pocha is devoted to erasing the borders between art and politics, art practice and theory, artist and spectator. For 30 years, LPN has intensely focused on the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations as an act of radical citizen diplomacy and as a means to create “ephemeral communities” of rebel artists.
La Pocha Nostra’s performance work mixes experimental aesthetics, activist politics, Spanglish humor and audience participation to create a “total experience” for both live and online audience member/reader/viewer. Continually developing multi-centric narratives and large-scale performance projects from a border perspective, La Pocha Nostra creates what critics have termed “Chicano cyber-punk performances,” and “ethno-techno art.” In the work, cultural borders have moved to the center while the alleged mainstream is pushed to the margins and treated as exotic and unfamiliar, placing the audience members and readers in the position of “foreigners” or “minorities.”

EAR Forest, Portland Oregon
2024-04-01 - 2024-04-10
THE EAR FOREST IN SPRINGTIME

We are embarking on a ten-day audio adventure starting on April Fools Day at the Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
As the inaugural artist-in-residence at the campus’s Experimental Art and Research (E.A.R.) Forest, we’ll create a sound piece with artist Dann Disciglio and Professor Jess Perlitz. The piece will be nestled in the trees utilizing the EAR Forest’s 16-channel audio system with 16 speakers installed in the trees.
Our schedule is:
Thursday April 4th Artist Talk with film screening
Monday April 8th PICNIC ECLIPSE GATHERING. We’re hosting a public Solar Eclipse viewing picnic on April 8th. We’ll invite folks to meet at 10:45am for some company and light refreshments, and prepare to view the peak eclipse at 11:25 am. More details will be announced soon!
Tuesday April 9th Ecosex sound piece Opening public event celebration!

Queer Artist Survival Salon #2
2024-04-03 18:00 - 20:00 | 465 Collective, San Francisco, CA, United States
EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens) and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex are hosting THREE Peer Exchanges at the new 465 Collective Space to harness the peer power of San Francisco Bay Area Queer Artists to co-create survival tactics, tools, and frameworks.

We, as queer / dyke / fag artists, know that our art / work / collections have been, continue to be, and will likely always be censored by domination, oppression, and tyranny. We will think, dream, and work together to develop tactics that ensure our being / art / work survives these attacks. Each Peer Exchange in this series focuses on a different aspect of queer / dyke / fag survival and uses arts-based activities to generate collective wisdom. We will gather our results into an online resource guide with the participants’ consent. This guide will feature a summary of the Peer Exchanges, art activities to aid personal and collective exploration, and suggested material and actions for deeper understanding and analysis. We will autonomously and collectively take action to ensure queer / dyke / fag art / artists are more interconnected, documented, and their work shared, so that it / we survive long into the future.

TOPIC TWO: Queer Life Social Security – What kinds of security do we queers need to live (and thrive) in this oppressive world? This question will be the featured topic of our second Peer Exchange, where we will craft our Personal Social Security Cards. We can display these cards should we find ourselves in a place of insecurity or emergency. They will remind us of who we are, what to do, and who to rely on in case of emergency. E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF and Queerly Complex will compile the tactics, ideas, and strategies generated through this exercise into a Queer Security Tip Sheet and publish it via the Culture Tending Commons. We will also be sharing all of our backend organizing tactics so other queers / dykes / fags can facilitate similar conversations and collective knowledge generation in their communities.

Celebration: A Sensuous Earth Day Stroll & Poetry Affair: Cool Down at the Wild Side West!
2024-04-21 13:00 - 16:00 | Bernal Heights Branch Public Library, 500 Cortland Avenue, San Francisco, 94110
OUR EARTH DAY TRADITION

Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens invite you to their 3rd annual Ecosex Earth Day celebration. Step into a world where nature’s allure meets poetic expression.
Embark on a journey through Holly Park, guided by the enchanting duo of Stephens and Sprinkle, along with their nature-loving companions. Leave behind the digital realm and immerse yourself in the tactile pleasures of our earthy escapade. Throughout this sensorial adventure, indulge your senses in sumptuous scents, captivating sights, and the melodious symphony of nature’s whispers. As we tread lightly upon the earth, we will serenade our beloved planet with verses that paint her as our cherished lover. Join us for a celebration of the sensual and the ecological, where poetry intertwines with the pulse of the Earth itself.
This eco-erotic poetry walk is inspired by the Earth—for the Earth.
Presented with the E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF (ELSF). This org builds community by creating collaborative, multidisciplinary art projects that re-envision the Earth, all of its beings, and environmental activism with fresh eyes. ELSF expands prevailing notions of environmental art, challenges the mainstream’s binary concepts of gender, sexuality and race, and incorporates inclusive, diverse and imaginative possibilities for sustainable living. Their projects promote love, tolerance, sustainability and peace.
Stephens and Sprinkle have been creating multimedia projects together for 21 years, about love, environmental issues and the sensual pleasures of the natural world. Stephens has been a professor at University of California Santa Cruz for 29 years. Sprinkle was a sex worker turned performance artist. The duo make films, produce symposiums, create theater and performance art. Their Ecosex Manifesto launched the Ecosex Movement. They are currently making a film about fire for which they were awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021. Their book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position—the Earth as Lover (University of Minnesota Press) chronicles their epic love story and art/life adventures.
Attendees of the event will receive complimentary copies of Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth As Lover, courtesy of SFPL. Copies will be distributed before (please arrive early) and after the event. Additionally, following the stroll, the book giveaway will continue at the Wild Side West garden, accompanied by a book signing. While supplies last.
Connect:
Sprinkle & Stephens Collaboration – Website | Earth Lab SF – Website
Beth Stephens – Twitter | Beth Stephens – Instagram
Annie Sprinkle – Twitter | Annie Sprinkle – Instagram

Erotic Resisters & Ecosexuals Unite! with Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa at the Tenderloin Museum
2024-04-27 15:00 - 17:00
Erotic Resisters and Ecosexuals Unite!
Authors Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Annie Sprinkle, & Beth Stephens in-person! Moderated by Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield
Saturday April 27, 2024 | 3-5pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA94102
Free or Suggested Donation ($10) | Register via Eventbrite
In celebration of the recent publication of Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa’s new book, Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco, Tenderloin Museum hosts the author for a double-header book talk with Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens, fellow activist-artists and scholars of human sexuality, who will discuss their latest latest, Assuming the Ecosexual Position:The Earth as Lover.
A celebration of the erotic performance cultures that have shaped San Francisco, Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco (UC Press, 2024) explores a milieu that is indelibly intertwined with the Tenderloin’s history: the city’s bohemian past and its essential role in the development of American adult entertainment by highlighting the contributions of women of color, queer women, and trans women who were instrumental in the city’s labor history, as well as its LGBT and sex workers’ rights movements. Otálvaro-Hormillosa utilizes visual and performance analysis, historiography, and ethnographic research (including participant observation as both performer and spectator), and interviews with legendary burlesquers and strippers to share a remarkable history and to frame an intersection of art, activism, performance, and human sexuality. Otálvaro-Hormillosa explores how, in the 1960s, topless entertainment became legal in San Francisco for the first time in the US, even while cross-dressing continued to be criminalized, and how, in the 1990s, stripper-artist activists led the first successful class action lawsuits and efforts to unionize! She writes, says Annie Sprinkle, “courageously and eloquently from her perspective as a performance artist and scholar inspired by the tradition of sex-positive feminists since the 1960s who have resisted patriarchy by reclaiming and celebrating their sexuality.”
On Saturday April 27th, Otálvaro-Hormillosa will present her work and new book at a TLM public program in conjunction with her friends and fellow artist-activists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, who also work in the space where scholarship, sexuality, activism, and the arts intersect and have in fact helped shape the field and discipline of human sexuality studies. Both have long and storied careers as artists and academics, and since 2002 have been life partners and “50/50 collaborators” on multimedia projects. In 2008, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens married the Earth, which set them on the path to explore the realms of ecosexuality as they became lovers with the Earth and made their mutual pleasure an embodied expression of passion for the environment. Ever since, they have been not just pushing but obliterating the boundaries circumscribing biology and ecology, creating ecosexual art in their performance of an environmentalism that is feminist, queer, sensual, sexual, posthuman, materialist, exuberant, and steeped in humor. Their latest publication, Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover ((U. of Minnesota Press, 2021), describes how the two came together as lovers and collaborators, how they took a stand against homophobia and xenophobia, and how this union led to the miraculous conception of the Love Art Laboratory.
Join us for these complementary book talks, both of which explore subjects that resonate with the Tenderloin’s history and culture, in a program moderated by professor at Rhodes College, media-maker, and Sprinkle/Stephens collaborator Dr. Joy Brooke Fairfield. Free or suggested donation ($10); please register via Eventbrite to let us know you’re coming! This program is one of many happenings for “I Love Tenderloin Week,” a celebration of the neighborhood and its people, businesses, and culture by a coalition of local individuals and organizations.

Art, Activism & Equity: A Retrospective on San Francisco's Cultural Evolution
2024-06-01 13:00 - 15:00 | San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, 94102, United States
Artists Idris Ackamoor, Marie Acosta and Pam Peniston discuss cultural equity in San Francisco’s arts scene and its national impact, hosted by grantwriter Jeff Jones with artist/activists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. Learn how SF’s BIPOC and Queer artists transformed arts funding from the60s to the 90s, challenging exclusionary practices and securing CulturalEquity Grants. Discover how they increased support for diverse art forms and venues like Theater Rhino and SoMarts. Co-sponsored by the SanFrancisco Public Library, this event is funded by an Individual Artist Grant from the SF Arts Commission and a Major Project grant from UC Santa Cruz.
For questions about the program contact sfplcpp@sfpl.org.For accommodations (such as ASL or language interpretation), call (415) 557-4400 oraccessibility@sfpl.org. Requesting 3 days in advance will help ensure availability.

https://sfpl.org/events/2024/06/01/presentation-art-activism-equity

Opening of Splash! Eco and Hydrosexuals Unite! at Gallery lokal 30, Warsaw, Poland
2024-06-14 19:00 | Gallery lokal 30, Warsaw, Poland
Ecosexual Artists: Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens; cyber_nymphs: Justyna Górowska, Ewelina Jarosz
Some of the Earth Loving seeds we’ve planted are coming to fruition. This June we are having a two-collaboration art show, Splash: eco + hydrosexuals unite!! with our friends, Evelyna Jaroz and Justyna Górowksa at lokal 30. Curated by Director Agnieszka Rayzacher. We began discussing this show in August, 2022 and now it is finally going to happen. We will exhibit some older works as well as more recent ones, including a screening of the film we curated with The One Minutes, Imagine the Earth As Lover. As we have never been to Poland, we are very excited and appreciative of this invitation.

Park as Lover: Ecosex Walking Ritual, Solstice in Düsseldorf, Germany
2024-06-22 12:00 - 23:00 | Lantz’sch Park, Dusseldorf, Germany
We will be performing in, The Park as Lover, throughout the Lantz’sch Park in Düsseldorf, Germany. There we will explore and honor the park by walking in and around it, eventually we will come to a sacred grove, where we will hold a participatory commitment ritual for the park, the trees, and for peace on Earth. Many friends from the Buga Festival will join us there, as well as Joy Brook Fairfield (our director) and amazing author, Dr. Mithu M. Sanyal. Plus, Beekeeper and Theater Director Luke Dixon will be there too. This performance ritual take place the afternoon of June 22, 2024, the first day of summer. More details to follow.

Workshop, Film Screening and Artists’ Lecture in Prague
2024-06-28 08:00 - 2024-07-01 17:00 | Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
We have been invited to organize a workshop and/or ritual performance to create community for and with art students during our visit at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The workshop will focus on ecosexal art, performance, activism and interdisciplinary practices. We will also offer a presentation for the public. More information coming soon.

Alice Neel in the Queer World
2024-09-07
David Zwirner Gallery. We will be at the opening of this show, Alice Neel in the Queer World. The painting Alice Neel did of Annie in 1982, now worth over a million dollars, is on display in the gallery and on the cover of the catalogue.

Green Apple Books
2024-10-10
This book store event is to celebrate the new edition of “Coming Out Like a Porn Star.” Our book Assuming the Ecosexual Position will also be available for sale and we’ll sign and decorate copies sold. Annie will be “in conversation” with Jiz Lee and Dr. Carol Queen. Beth will be directing a documentation video for the event.

Roxie Cinema
2024-10-12 21:30 - 23:00
Artist and film director, Shu Lea Chang, is traveling the USA with a remastered 35 mm print of her incredible first feature film, Fresh Kill. Right after watching the film, Beth and Annie are invited to go onstage with Shu Lea to “be in conversation.”

Litanies
2024-10-17 18:00 - 21:00
A Ritual Reading Performance for Audre Lorde. Earth Lab SF will be co-producing this performance happening conducted by our EarthLab board member, Courtney Deseree Morris. The Women’s Building.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/litanies-a-ritual-reading-for-audre-lorde-tickets-1007304122747?aff=oddtdtcreator

Research Trip to West Virginia
2024-10-27 - 2024-11-04
We are in West Virginia where we are conducting election research. We are pleased to note there are hardly any Trump signs.

November/December: Editing new film, "Playing with Fire"
2024-11-01 - 2024-12-31
As California burns, communities feel the heat. ‘Playing with Fire: an Ecosexual Emergency,’ a 75-minute eco-documentary produced by the E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF, explores the entwined fates of climate change and social-justice. Spurred by the devastating wildfires of 2020, artist-filmmakers Sprinkle and Stephens explore their community, amplifying marginalized voices to spark hope and action for a more just future.

Election night: Private performance ritual with collaborators
2024-11-05
We will be doing a ritual performance with E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF colleagues, friends, and supporters to lend our energy to protecting our freedom of expression, GLBTQ and BIPOC rights and the Earth’s environment.

Ecosexual Escapades: Erotics of Environmental Art and Activism
2024-11-09 08:00

Gratitude Feast at E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF
2024-11-28

E.A.R.T.H. LAB SF: Board meeting
2024-11-30 08:00 - 17:00

Test Screening of Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency
2024-11-30 19:00 - 22:00

E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF Listening Event
2025-01-12 13:00 - 15:00
Join us for a two-hour online community listening session. The Board and staff incorporate feedback from these sessions into planning our upcoming programs, ensuring that E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF remains responsive to the needs and aspirations of the communities and artists we serve. This process enables our artistic and environmental programming to stay relevant, engaging, and inclusive. We will develop and use online and print surveys to collect feedback.

Queer Artist Survival Strategies: Salon and Workshop #1
2025-02-13 18:00 - 20:00 | 465 Collective, San Francisco, CA, United States
EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens) and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex are hosting THREE Peer Exchanges at the new 465 Collective Space to harness the peer power of San Francisco Bay Area Queer Artists to co-create survival tactics, tools, and frameworks.

TOPIC ONE: Strategies for Hope and Joy – How do we remain hopeful and practice joy even while under assault? Using the concept of a “recipe card,” we will invite all who attend to create their recipe for hope and joy, sharing “ingredients” and “actions” with others. We will compile the recipe cards into a mini cookbook, “The Hope & Joy of Cooking,” and publish it via the Culture Tending Commons. Our “cookbook” will be a fabulous outreach and organizing tool, which we will share with other LGBTQIA+ community centers throughout the South and Midwest to convey our collective resources and start strengthening alliances between more rural and urban queers / dykes / fags.
We, as queer / dyke / fag artists, know that our art / work / collections have been, continue to be, and will likely always be censored by domination, oppression, and tyranny. We will think, dream, and work together to develop tactics that ensure our being / art / work survives these attacks. Each Peer Exchange in this series focuses on a different aspect of queer / dyke / fag survival and uses arts-based activities to generate collective wisdom. We will gather our results into an online resource guide with the participants’ consent. This guide will feature a summary of the Peer Exchanges, art activities to aid personal and collective exploration, and suggested material and actions for deeper understanding and analysis. We will autonomously and collectively take action to ensure queer / dyke / fag art / artists are more interconnected, documented, and their work shared, so that it / we survive long into the future.

Queer Artist Survival Strategies: A Salon and Workshop #2
2025-04-03 18:00 - 20:00 | 465 Collective, San Francisco, CA, United States
EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens) and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex are hosting THREE Peer Exchanges at the new 465 Collective Space to harness the peer power of San Francisco Bay Area Queer Artists to co-create survival tactics, tools, and frameworks.

TOPIC TWO: Queer Life Social Security – What kinds of security do we queers need to live (and thrive) in this oppressive world? This question will be the featured topic of our second Peer Exchange, where we will craft our Personal Social Security Cards. We can display these cards should we find ourselves in a place of insecurity or emergency. They will remind us of who we are, what to do, and who to rely on in case of emergency. E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF and Queerly Complex will compile the tactics, ideas, and strategies generated through this exercise into a Queer Security Tip Sheet and publish it via the Culture Tending Commons. We will also be sharing all of our backend organizing tactics so other queers / dykes / fags can facilitate similar conversations and collective knowledge generation in their communities.
We, as queer / dyke / fag artists, know that our art / work / collections have been, continue to be, and will likely always be censored by domination, oppression, and tyranny. We will think, dream, and work together to develop tactics that ensure our being / art / work survives these attacks. Each Peer Exchange in this series focuses on a different aspect of queer / dyke / fag survival and uses arts-based activities to generate collective wisdom. We will gather our results into an online resource guide with the participants’ consent. This guide will feature a summary of the Peer Exchanges, art activities to aid personal and collective exploration, and suggested material and actions for deeper understanding and analysis. We will autonomously and collectively take action to ensure queer / dyke / fag art / artists are more interconnected, documented, and their work shared, so that it / we survive long into the future.

Wet, Wild & Radical: An Ecosexual Earth Day Salon
2025-04-22 18:00 - 20:00 | 465 Collective, San Francisco, CA, United States
With Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, Madison Young, & E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF Friends,
Join us for an evening of planetary love! Let’s imagine the Earth is our lover—because pleasure is a pathway to change! Whether you’re eco-curious or fully out, this salon will spark our collective imaginations. We’ll present an intro to ecosex, share ecosexy stories, and touch on environmental justice strategies. Get ready for a lively discussion, tasty snacks, and a round of Ecosex Jeopardy! Come connect, laugh, and expand your relationship with nature in sensual, and radical ways.

Queer Artist Survival Strategies: Salon and Workshop #3
2025-06-05 18:00 - 20:00
EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens) and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex are hosting THREE Peer Exchanges at the new 465 Collective Space to harness the peer power of San Francisco Bay Area Queer Artists to co-create survival tactics, tools, and frameworks.

TOPIC THREE: Queer Autonomous Zones for Self Determination – What are the shapes-boundaries of your personal space? How do we negotiate spaces for movement collectively? Participants at this Peer Exchange will begin by using masking tape to define the edges of their personal space. We will then use these edges and physical marks to dig deeper into how we take up and move through sites personally and collectively. We will then distill our conversation into maps, charts, and diagrams that inspire conversations about autonomy, personal and political space, self-determination, and movement. We will publish the results (with consent) via the Culture Tending Commons. Additionally, E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF and Queerly Complex will compile all the maps, charts, and diagrams along with the activity instructions and share them with other organizers, teaching artists, and facilitators to aid them in their classrooms, organizing, and conflict mediation.

We, as queer / dyke / fag artists, know that our art / work / collections have been, continue to be, and will likely always be censored by domination, oppression, and tyranny. We will think, dream, and work together to develop tactics that ensure our being / art / work survives these attacks. Each Peer Exchange in this series focuses on a different aspect of queer / dyke / fag survival and uses arts-based activities to generate collective wisdom. We will gather our results into an online resource guide with the participants’ consent. This guide will feature a summary of the Peer Exchanges, art activities to aid personal and collective exploration, and suggested material and actions for deeper understanding and analysis. We will autonomously and collectively take action to ensure queer / dyke / fag art / artists are more interconnected, documented, and their work shared, so that it / we survive long into the future.

Tribeca Film Fest
2025-06-10
June 10th, Manhattan, NY. Tribeca Film Fest. Annie will be there for the world premiere of a new documentary film produced by HBO, about the history of MS. Magazine. Annie is featured in a segment about the feminist porn wars, directed by Cecilia Aldarando. Additional screenings on
https://tribecafilm.com/films/dear-ms-a-revolution-in-print-2025

“A Body to Live In” California premiere at Frameline Film festival
2025-06-19 20:00 - 22:00 | Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
San Francisco, at the Roxie Theater. “A Body to Live In” has it’s California premiere at Frameline Film festival. We’ll be there! Annie is featured in this film about the artist and photographer Fakir Musafar, the godfather of modern day body piercing movement.

Playing With Fire—An Ecosexual Emergency World Premiere
2025-06-20 11:00 - 13:00
Our Hot New Feature Film Has A World Premiere!
From the creators of the first queer environmental documentary feature films comes a hot new offering: Playing with Fire—An Ecosexual Emergency. Building on the international acclaim of Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story and Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure, this third chapter is their most epic and daring yet—fusing art, activism, and intimate storytelling in a touching journey through crisis, change, and renewal.
Details coming soon!

Frameline Film Festival’s Industry Day
2025-06-23
We will be attending this day long happening with film makers, industry people and press. Please come say hello and take selfies! Details here.
