Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle In-Person

Wednesday, April 15, 7:00 PM

Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle have created multi-media art projects about love, sex, and queer ecologies together since 2002. Annie was a sex worker who morphed into a feminist performance artist. Beth has been a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz since 1994. The duo makes printed matter, writes books, and has gallery exhibitions of their multimedia artworks. They also create performance art, walking tours, and produce eco-activist symposiums. Their book, Assuming the Ecosexual Position—the Earth as Lover, (U of Minnesota Press) chronicles their epic love story and art/life adventures. “Playing with Fire—An Ecosexual Emergency” is the third in their trilogy of feature films that explore environmental issues through an ecosexual lens.

Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency
Directors: Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle, Documentary, USA, 71 min

Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency is a joyous documentary born from the ashes of a devastating forest fire. When lightning ignites the redwood forest surrounding their home in Boulder Creek, California, longtime lovers Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle are forced to evacuate —and their lives are forever transformed. Blending loss and grief with art, humor, and community care, the film unfolds through an ecosexual lens (imagining the Earth as a lover) while weaving stories from formerly incarcerated firefighters, an Indigenous scholar, fire artists, neighbors, a witch-therapist, a fire-play massage fetishist, and a fire tassel twirling burlesque queen. Partially narrated by Boulder Creek’s mythical white peacock Albert, Playing with Fire is a powerful portrait of resilience in the face of a world in flames.