Nancy Baker Cahill | Autumn Breon | Yvette Granata | Caroline Sinders | Amelia Winger-Bearskin | Roopa Vasudevan |
Nancy Baker Cahill | Autumn Breon | Yvette Granata | Caroline Sinders | Amelia Winger-Bearskin | Roopa Vasudevan |
ON VIEW JAN 7 2025 - MAR 29 2025
Still of Autumn Breon in FEMINIST News from Planet Esoterica (2023) in by Breon collaboration with FEMINIST
Curatorial Statement
“On Demand brings together multiple artists from across the US to present a multivalent and layered look at some of the externalities of the Dobbs decision. Inspired by protest movements, self published periodicals, zines, protest signs, and community-activated art, these pieces act as spaces of activation and urgency, as calls to arms, and as markers of this unprecedented political moment.
Now is the perfect time to ask what art can do, and how can art support activism beyond platitudes? As artists, we see art as a catalyst and spark to galvanize movement towards reproductive freedom, reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. These pieces aim to highlight this urgency- as in the US, the time is now, more than ever, to save, cement and codify reproductive justice, and abortion rights for all. Additionally, each piece is donating a portion of their sales to an abortion-related community fund, non-profit or mutual aid group.”
–Caroline Sinders, artist and curator of On Demand
Territory, video, 2024
Nancy Baker Cahill (She/Her)
Artist statement: at the request of the artist, this space is kept intentionally blank.
FEMINIST NEWS FROM PLANET ESOTERICA (2023)
Autumn Breon (She/Her) in Collaboration with FEMINIST
Broadcasting from the Feminist Newsroom on Planet Esoterica, just 300 light-years from Earth, extraterrestrial news anchor Autumn Breon brings you timely updates on the ongoing battle for reproductive justice worldwide.
From the aftermath of landmark court decisions to legislative battles shaping access to abortion and contraception, we provide insightful analysis and actionable steps for advocacy. In each episode, Autumn Breon is joined by a diverse lineup of guests, including activists, organizers, and educators at the forefront of the reproductive freedom movement. We cover grassroots efforts, legislative battles, and in-depth exposés on the challenges and triumphs within the reproductive rights landscape.
Join us as we explore the intersection of politics, healthcare, and human rights, empowering listeners with accurate information. Stay informed, stay engaged, and stand with us in the fight to defend reproductive freedom.
Because (States’ Rights) (2024)
Roopa Vasudevan (She/Her)
In 2012, Roopa Vasudevan launched Sluts Across America: A Birth Control Advocacy Project—a website asking visitors to complete the statement “I’m a slut because...” with their rationales for using or supporting access to contraception. To date, the site has amassed over 8,000 contributions from all over the United States (and the world).
Because (States’ Rights) is a series of screen recordings of software executables developed as part of Vasudevan’s larger Because project, which take individual statements gathered on the Sluts Across America site and place them against randomly-selected locations within the contributors’ provided zip codes. The video is a split screen showing two cities at a time. On the left are cities in states that have enshrined reproductive rights into their state constitutions; on the right are cities in states where abortion has been banned or heavily restricted. The similarities visible across both the tenor of contributor statements and the features of each built environment suggest that personal support for reproductive justice and bodily autonomy is not just limited to residents of so-called “blue” states; and that, in a post-Roe society, solidarity across geography becomes critically important to ensure that everyone gets access to the care they deserve.
no system (2024)
Amelia Winger-Bearskin (She/Her)
The video was filmed on an iPhone out the window of my airplane as I left a place that might murder me if I get pregnant for a place where I would be allowed to become pregnant and live and for my child to live. I extracted the depth from that video using AI and added only blue and red to one of the depth map extractions. The colors of the two political parties in this country no longer represent the real world.
A system that requires the subjugation of half of its population to survive is no system.
I have less rights to have my life saved if I were suffering a natural, spontaneous miscarriage than my grandmother did, and her grandmother did, and her grandmother did, until my first maternal ancestor met the first colonist on her territory.
We can be free when we realize there is no system. We can perceive and see the planet, just the world around us. We both live in the hellscape created by politics used to subjugate colonial subjects, but we are still alive. And all of us will die—even the system. There is no system.
I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs (2023)
Yvette Granata (She/Her)
I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs isa hybrid documentary about postpartum psychosis and DIY abortion told through the hallucinatory experience of a former anti-abortion activist – based on a true Subreddit.
We journey through an anonymous woman’s experience of postpartum psychosis and a failed DIY herbal abortion as she reveals her story through hallucinations and flashbacks. A former anti-abortion activist who once spent her weekends praying outside of abortion clinics, her life takes a turn after the birth of her first child. She suffers a psychotic break and believes her baby is a demon. After recovering, she finds herself unexpectedly pregnant again and accidentally poisons herself during a DIY herbal abortion. Ultimately she must choose between motherhood and sanity.
The original format for I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs is an interactive VR film experience made for PCVR with 6dof (Oculus Rift-S or a linked Quest 2). For screening at Project Empty Space, I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs has been recorded from within the headset and edited for display as a 2D video.
The public can download the original VR experience to try at home here: https: //bit.ly/lethalherbsVR
Video Works are now on view at PES FUTURES.
A SERIES OF CHOICES
A Series of Choices by Caroline Sinders (They/Them) , prompts visitors to vote for statements that relate to their experience with abortion and culminate in a large-scale, participatory data visualization of this subject. Audience members exercise their enshrined right to vote to assert how reproductive justice issues affect and inform their lived experiences. ASOC was previously mounted during PES’ 2023 Feminist Incubator Program and in 2024 at the BFFE HQ as part of the ongoing takeover of PES FUTURES.