Young artists are coming up with increasingly out-of-the-box ways to protest Donald Trump. Newest amongst them: a cathartic drum-off by female and gender-nonconforming performers, a pop-up tattoo parlour filling the voids in our post-election lives (and wardrobes), and a panel discussion on activism followed by a marathon of seminal slasher film franchise Friday the 13th. The series of performances and events all center around an art show also called Nasty Women — which invites self-identifying nasty women to contribute a piece of art to be sold for $100 or less, with all proceeds given to Planned Parenthood.
The nasty women organizing the show, Roxanne Jackson and Jessamyn Fiore, formed the idea after Jackson posted a call to action on Facebook a few days after the election. “Hello female artists/curators!” she wrote. “Let’s organize a NASTY WOMEN group show!!! Who’s interested???” Enough were interested for Jackson and Fiore to host the show inside a massive former glass factory in Queens. And the movement has gained traction far further afield, with venues from Nashville to Belgium showing solidarity by hosting protest events of their own. “The inclusive Cambridge Nasty Women Exhibition will be collectively huge and furious,” promised an anti-Trump ally in the UK. “Coinciding with a city literary festival, artwork will take the shape of text-based placards from a wide coalition of artists threatened by the attack of demagogues.”
With only a week to go until January 20, Nasty Women is not just a fundraiser but a sparkplug for conversation, organization, and action preceding an administration set on eroding women’s rights. (Just the other night, Republicans rejected the Obamacare amendment requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of birth control). The need for unapologetically political art has rarely been greater, so check out the full list of Knockdown Center events here, attend a Discwoman-soundtracked educational forum, hit up the Nasty Protest Material Workshop, or get tattooed through a hole in your tights. The ink isn’t temporary, but nor are Trump’s plans for the Supreme Court.
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Text Hannah Ongley