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WATER MAKES US WET WITH Q&A

Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle

Screening - 1 November 2021, 6 pm - 7.30 pm

Q&A - 1 November 2021, 7.45 pm - 8.45 pm

To celebrate the launch of Annie and Beth’s exhibition, Assuming The Ecosexual Position, NEoN screened Water Makes us Wet - a poetic blend of curiosity, humour, sensuality, and concern, this film chronicles the pleasures and politics of H2O from an ecosexual perspective. Travel around California with Annie, a former sex worker, Beth, a professor, and their dog Butch, in their E.A.R.T.H. Lab mobile unit, as they explore water in the Golden State. Ecosexuality shifts the metaphor “Earth as Mother” to “Earth as Lover” to create a more reciprocal and empathetic relationship with the natural world. Along the way, Annie and Beth interact with a diverse range of folks including performance artists, biologists, water treatment plant workers, scholars, and others, climaxing in a shocking event that reaffirms the power of water, life, and love.

Full Film credits here

The film was followed by a live Q+A with Beth and Annie hosted by curator Ailie Rutherford. The projects coincided with COP26 in Scotland. We have discussed the ecosexual movement, and how in the face of greed and environmental destruction we can maintain joy and also make the environmental movement more sexy, fun and diverse.

Schedule:
Screening (80 mins) - 1 November 2021, 6 pm - 7.30 pm

Q&A (60 mins) - 1 November 2021, 7.45 pm - 8.45 pm

Please be aware this film contains strong language, sexual reference, nudity and scenes of an accident that some viewers may find upsetting.

About the Artists

Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle have created multi-media art projects about love, sex, and queer ecologies together since 2002. Annie was a sex worker from 1973 to 1995 and morphed into a feminist performance artist and sex educator. In 1994, Beth became a professor of sculpture and intermedia at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she still teaches and directs the E.A.R.T.H. Lab. These days the duo make environmental films with an ecosexual gaze; they also create theatre, performance art, eco-activism, and produce symposiums and workshops. Their Wedding to the Earth and the Ecosex Manifesto launched the Ecosex Movement in 2008. Notably, they were official documenta 14 artists, received a 2019 Eureka Fellowship, and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. Their new book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position—the Earth as Lover, available at the University of Minnesota Press, chronicles their epic love story and art/life adventures.

ACCESS KEY: CC

CC - Captioned
Projects marked CC will have live, or pre-recorded captions in English. These captions will express all text spoken. For some of the performance the captions will be optional and instructions on how to turn on the captions will be clearly described on the individual show pages.

Articles published online on the NEoN website, as part of the NEoN 2021 Festival can be found here and here

Online discussion as part of NEoN 2021 Festival (video hosted on our Vimeo channel)