estephe | Sprinkle Stephens

Manifesta 14

by estephe | Aug 10, 2022 | Gallery Installations

Ecosexual artist couple Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle (1960, 1954, US) build community by creating multidisciplinary art projects that envision the natural world, and sexuality, with fresh eyes. They question and expand prevailing notions of environmental art; challenge the mainstream’s binary concepts of gender, erotic pleasure and race; incorporate inclusive, diverse, and imaginative possibilities for more meaningful and happy living; and support scientifically informed environmental practices. Their body of work promotes love, tolerance, sustainability and peace.

As movers and shakers in the ecosexual movement, Sprinkle and Stephens have written instructions for pleasuring the Earth (25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth), ecosexual manifestos and vows for marrying the Earth. Their most recent book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover (2021), was published by University of Minnesota Press.

Manifest 14 exhibition page.

Wedding to the Sea

by estephe | Jan 16, 2021 | Uncategorized

Queer New York International Arts Festival—Central Park

by estephe | Oct 15, 2020 | Sexecological Walking Tours

Central Park Walking Tour

Our Croatian curator friend, Zvonimir Dobrovic, invited us to participate in the 4th annual New York International Queer Arts Festival. We love Zvonimir and we love New York, so of course we said yes! September 16th, 2015, was a perfect day and we met in Central Park with a group of artists, academics, friends and activists for a special walk in the Park. This Ecosex Walking Tour of Central Park adventure started with Ecosex Orientation. We then invited our audiences to explore 25 Ways to Make love to the Earth and find their “E-spots (ecosexy spot).” We did a special ritual in honor of Candida Royalle who had recently passed. This tour featured a special water toast, Ecosexercises, and climaxed with rubbing Manhattan’s planetary clitoris which was a gorgeous knob on a tree. We heightened awareness about environmental issues along the way. By the end of the walk, everyone on the tour came out as ecosexual. This tour was special. Some favorite artists joined us. Maria Korean Bride added her great energy. It was the last time Fluxus artist and “Cloudsmith,” Geoffrey Hendricks joined us in a performance and he was magnificent as always, giving himself over to the full experience. Plus our tour guide collaborators were two fantastic artists, Tif Robinette and Bruno Isacovic. We’d love to do another Ecosex Walking Tour in Central Park again one day as there is so much more to explore.

National Queer Arts Festival—San Francisco

by estephe | Oct 15, 2020 | Sexecological Walking Tours

The International Queer Arts Festival Bernal Heights Walking Tour

Leading an ecosexual walking tour in our neighborhood of Bernal Heights during the Queer Arts Festival, June 21, 2015 was exciting. This was the first time we had scripted our walking tour into an actual performance piece. Joy Brooke Fairfield was our director. Our team assistants were Maria Ramirez and Bronwyn McCleod. Our Pollination Pod functioned as a stage, backstage, dressing room, prop room, and post-show café. Costume design by Sarah Stolar.We led a group of artists, academics, ecologists and activists 360 degrees around our beloved hill. This was the same site where we had married the Sun in 2011 to end the Love Art Lab project. Everyone seemed to have a beautiful walk, and enjoyed the first iteration of our new ecosexual performance outside with the Earth as lover.

Photography by Seth Temple Andrews.

Sample from Walking Tour Script

WATER VISUALIZATION —(Station #4. Top of Bernal Hill)

Sounds of water?

Beth: We are so lucky to have this beautiful lagoon and the sea to enjoy. We love water! I wrote a poem this morning about water.

Water
Is a sexy little slut

In tumultuous, simultaneous

Continuous love affairs with the sun, the air, the earth, and all its life.

She moves in a cycle with no beginning and no end,

Circulating around the planet, moving energy in her wake.

Tickling over the rocks as rivers and streams

She carves her name into stone cliffs so they will never forget her

She spills out into the sea in mucky silty deltas

Only to be raised up by the powerful pull of her lover the sun,

Turned by fire into steamy vapor

As she cools off, water grabs on tight to tiny particles of dust suspended in the air

In their embrace, clouds form

Water fucks the dirty air, And drops fall

She rushes back down to her lover the Earth

Pounding the forests, Drenching the pavements

Filling the lakes, The animals gulp her up and release her again

The plants suck her down then let her fly back off green leaves as the sun calls.

Water is a sexy little slut

Fearless, secretive and generous. Unafraid of movement and change.

Slow as stone sometimes in glaciers

She pretends to be a mountain.

Fast and dangerous through river rapids

Relentless in a hard rain,

Endless out at sea, Then becoming-cloud in damp fog banks

But.

The world is not always kind to sexy little sluts

Some try to take advantage of her boundlessness

Some buy and sell her, treating her as a commodity

Some try to hold her in place and control her movement

Some exploit her power to do their work, to make their money.

Water – erotic guardian of us all, show us how to flow fearlessly and ride the cycle of change!

Seedbed: A Soil Symposium

by estephe | Oct 14, 2020 | Ecosex Symposiums

April 26-27, 2018 In collaboration with the UCSC Farm & Garden and the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food System, the E.A.R.T.H. Lab hosted Seedbed: a Soil Symposium. This interdisciplinary symposium on the state of soil took place from April 26th – 28th. It featured performances, interactive activities and visual artwork installed throughout campus. Panels took place in the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn.

Click here to see our speaker bio’s and complete program. Below are photos of the program documentation. Click here to see details about our panels and our wonderful speakers.