Eco-Sexual Blue Wedding To The Sea
With artist-brides Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens
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August 28, 2009 in Venice, Italy
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The Pavilion of the Society of Fear
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La Biennale di Venezia
Two ecstatic artist-brides will be marrying the ocean in a wedding like no other, at the Venice Biennale. Performance artists, poets, ecologists, porn stars, prostitutes, academics, activists, and people from well over a dozen countries will gather at the waters edge to make vows to “love, honor and cherish the Sea until death do us part.” The public is invited to witness the ceremony. The vows will be officiated by Spanish “Anti-Priest” and theorist Beatriz Preciado, the calling of the directions will be San Francisco pagan pleasure priestess sexologist Dr. Carol Queen, and the homily will be given by award winning American author Michelle Tea.
The artist-brides, Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens, ask for no material gifts, but invite people to collaborate on the creation of the wedding. Dozens of artists are busy preparing their offerings; Diana Pornoterrorista from Madrid will be a human fountain, Dutch Fluxus artist Harry Ruhe’ will model his Delft blue ocean underwear, Italian prostitutes rights activist Pia Covre will read a love poem written by the Venician couresan poet, Veronica Franko. Also presenting are the Swiss Mermaids, tR(ans)evolutionary eCoterrorist Graham Bell Tornado, and the maid of honor is French author of King Kong Theory and film director of Baise-moi, Virginie Despentes.
The artist-brides request that everyone wear blue and dress in the themes of the ocean. One woman is sewing a blue bullet-proof Kevlar Chador to wear in honor of Neda, an “aquatic artist” from Australia will don her bright blue wet suit, and burlesque sensation Lady Monster has made a glittery blue, Birth of Venus costume with twirling tassels that get wet.
The wedding will be ecologically sound---no plastic will be used. The blue and silver bridal couture is head-to-toe vegan and created by California painter Sarah Stolar, who will also perform a watery hula-hoop dance with her husband while her mother blows bubbles.
The bride-artists have had six other performance art weddings. “This past year, we married the Earth in a magnificent redwood tree grove in California with four hundred people attending, we married the sky in the rose garden of an historic mansion in England, and we had what may have been the first queer wedding in the Balkans. For our seventh wedding we will marry the Sea as we are passionately in love with her and desire to help save her from destruction. We are ‘eco-sexuals,’ meaning we find nature incredibly romantic, extraordinarily sensual, and an exquisite lover. Additionally we are ‘sexecologists.’ We intend to make the environmental movement a little sexier.”
Each wedding is site specific, utilizes a different theme and color, and has a political thrust. The Eco-sexual Blue Wedding to the Sea will take place at the 53rd Venice Biennale’s Society of Fear Pavilion, curated by artist Jota Castro. Stephens and Sprinkle explain, “The Sea has a fast growing cancer made of islands of plastic the size of Texas. She is suffocating from gasses caused by our pollution. Ninety percent of her large fish have been wiped out. She’s overheating and is brutally exploited. We simply can’t live without her. The Society of Fear Pavilion is the perfect place for this wedding. Many of us fear the destruction of our beautiful environment. We want to transform this fear into loving action to care for the sea.”
Marrying the sea in Venice is an old tradition, which is still celebrated today. During the Renaissance, the Doge (chief magistrate) decreed that, “Venice must marry the sea as a man marries a women and thus become her Lord.” Each year the Doge would go out on a boat and drop a ring into the water. The artists explain, “We will appropriate this tradition, but as two women who have moved beyond the dominant-male and submissive-female dynamic, who love not lord over, and as global citizens who care deeply about the welfare of our planet. We propose loving the Sea erotically, which takes us all deliciously deep inside our primordial selves. Our bodies are made largely of water so in fact we are the Sea. At our wedding we hope that everyone will take vows to love and protect oceans with us.”
Stephens and Sprinkle call their project the Love Art Laboratory, and they are dedicated to doing art projects that “explore, generate, and celebrate love.” Their projects grew out of their response to the violence of war, the anti-gay marriage movement, and the greed causing the destruction of the planet. Their events are symbolic gestures, which aim to instill hope, to be an antidote to fear, and act as a call to action.
Wedding day: August 28, 2009
Gather at 2:30 PM
Ceremony 3:00-4:30 PM
Reception 4:30-6:00 PM
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT STEPHENS & SPRINKLE’S LOVE ART LABORATORY: http://www.loveartlab.org/
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SOCIETY OF FEAR PAVILION
at Arsenale Novissimo, Tese di San Cristoforo, Tesa 92.
FOR INTERVIEWS OR INFORMATION CONTACT
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