Luiza Prado de O. Martins: The Sermon of the Weeds
Performance and Discussion
Thursday, December 8, 2022
6-7:30pm
The 8th Floor
17 W 17 St, NYC
Luiza Prado de O. Martins, The Weeds Became Long Graceful Grasses, 2019. Performance dinner, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin. Photo by Raisa Galofre.
Building out from the artist’s installation currently on view in El Corazón Aúlla, Luiza Prado de O. Martins will perform The Sermon of the Weeds for the first time in the United States, responding to recent attacks on reproductive rights around the world. The Sermon of the Weeds invokes possibilities for counter-hegemonic politics of radical care and solidarity, exploring the complex territory at the intersection of patriarchal structures, Christian belief systems, and ongoing struggles for reproductive rights. Through the format of a mass, these reflections are developed through an examination of the relationships between humans and plants used in abortifacient and contraceptive preparations at various points in history. The congregation is invited to reflect on the relationships amongst human and more-than-human actors in the struggle for the right to abortion, and the spiritual connections that emerge through these acts of solidarity.
The performance will be followed by a discussion between Prado de O. Martins and exhibition curator Alexis Heller.
RSVP to secure your seat as attendance for this performance is limited. Please email us with any dietary or olfactory concerns. Find information on accessing our space here.
Luiza Prado de O. Martins is an artist, writer, educator, and researcher investigating plant-human relations, reproduction, herbal medicine, and radical, decolonising care. Her body of artistic work spans video, food, performance, installation, and sculpture, examining questions of reproductive rights from a feminist and anti-colonial lens, with a particular interest in herbalist medicinal practices. Her ongoing artistic research project, “In Weaving Shared Soil” explores sites of encounter between human and more-than-human actors implicated in spiritual and medicinal reproductive care. The project will take place in Brazil, Lebanon, the UK, and Germany throughout 2023. She is an assistant professor and vice-director of the Centre for Other Worlds at the Lusófona University in Lisbon. She is one half of the artist duo We Work in the Dark and a founding member of Decolonising Design.
Alexis Heller received a BA in Psychology from Wesleyan University and an MA in Social Work from Columbia University. She began an independent curatorial practice in 2012 centering marginalized LGBTQIA+ and Feminist histories. Heller has organized a number of exhibitions at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NYC, Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, as well as several alternative art spaces. She currently lives between New York and Costa Rica.
Image description: A woman with curly dark hair stirs a large steaming pot, backlit by a deep red light.