BEACH VAGINAS durational performance by Jana Astanov
December 4th 2021, Art Basel week, Miami Beach by 17th Street beach entry.
Eclipse Sunrise Uterusland shamanic journey & BEACH VAGINAS durational performance from 6:30 until 8pm.
The performance started with a shamanic trance-meditation – future life progression session led by Astanov to the rising sun, invoking and projecting the future where those beings with uteruses have freedom and choice deciding about their bodies and lives.
The future life progressions session followed by durational participatory performance consisting of multiple actions. We gathered as a group and while making our communal sand beach vaginas we shared the stories of the abortions we had, we cried, we hugged, we laughed, we felt connected in a healing circle, raising sun drying the tears and warming up our hearts knowing that we are sisters who support each other and care for each other regardless of the men made laws.
by Jana Astanov
Instead of morning yoga, come make some BEACH VAGINAS with me!
In this body with this body I spent years performing actions, expectations, rituals, gestures, back and forth, in this body with this body of gender rituals, sex rites and seduction dances, because it is so hard to free oneself from the ideological currents of the times we burst into. Now still, there is freedom, there must be freedom in this body with this body. Abortion is normal, and the people with uteruses must never be punished for their super powers, we have the power of creating life, on our own terms, when we choose to do so, and not when we are forced by Hammurabi’s laws to live up to some ideology that forces us to sacrifice ourselves – like the barbaric altar human sacrifices of the ancient civilizations that collapsed long ago. No! We live here and now, and we gonna make BEACH VAGINAS to celebrate our choice!
I had my first abortion when I was a collage student, I was on a pill on and off so it happened when I was off it. The condom broke, and I didn’t think twice as it was my last day of the cycle – last day right??! But the period never came… I lived in Poland where abortion was and is illegal even in the case of rape, or total damage of the fetus – it’s the medival times, it’s the death penalty on women, it’s the narrowmindness and catholic bullshit indoctrination. I asked a friend for help, she told someone she was helping to kill my baby, what baby? A pile of cells at two weeks??? Poland can be hell for women, the religion, the opinions, the pressure, the politics. It’s my body, it’s my choice and it will always be. My sister helped me, she got me the pill and it was over. The pill was insanely expensive as it was, and — it is — illegal in this world that is so determined to have control over the bodies of women and people with uteruses. That’s why we always must help each other, and never take lightly some old privileged dudes trying to take away our rights to birth and not to birth.
Did you know that abortion pills are available by telemedicine in *all 50 states*?
They are safe, convenient, and $150, in 2001 and I paid $450 for an abortion pill in Poland, but I did it, and never ever had any regrets! EVER!
Here in the US people can use #AbortionPillsForever, no matter what SCOTUS or any court decides.
Spread the word and http://ShareAbortionPill.Info ️
About the artist
Jana Astanov is a nondisciplinary artist, a writer, a poetess and an independent curator born in Mazury Lake District of Poland and currently living in the Shawangunk Mountains, in upstate New York. She is a founder of CREATRIX Magazine: www.creatrixmag.com, portal for creative expression focused on art, activism and spiritual practice. Her work includes performance art, sound art, and installation. Together with her partner Niko van Egten they co-created an electronic music group ASTRALOOP featuring her poetry in dark electronic arrangements. She is also the author of five collections of poetry: Antidivine, Grimoire, Sublunar, The Pillow Book of Burg, and Birds of Equinox.
