Tues, Feb 21
6:30 - 8PM

$15 General Public

FREE for Fountain House members

An evening of storytelling and performance - all about MUSHROOMS!

Hosted by vermilion (curator and artist). Featuring live performances by Rich Courage, Dre, mx.enigma, Lola, Susan Spangenberg, vermilion, Douglas Walker, and more. 

Followed by an open-mic! 

After our line-up of performers recite their stories, we will have an open mic for anyone to share their 3 minute stories as well. Prepare a 3-minute story on the topics of (but not limited to): joy, healing, psychedelic treatment, mental health, oneness, networks, and nature. Names will be drawn out of a hat and participants will go in random order!

Performers

mx.enigma (Fae/they/Ey) is a Queer Mizrahi mixed media artist. They received a BA in Media and Film/Gender Studies from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. Their work focuses on the intersections of Queerness, American culture, and public perceptions and has been featured at film and arts venues worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, Tribeca Film Festival, Miles Nadal Gallery in Toronto, and Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. They have had residencies at the Brandeis Collegiate Institute/American Jewish University in California, New York City’s Judson Memorial Church, and a writing fellowship with the LA Times. Mx. Je'Jae worked with the New York Public Library on a production of the play L’Chaim 2 Dykes, about Queer ex-Hasidic women engaged in custody battles.

Susan Spangenberg (she/her/hers) started painting at the age of three and hasn't lost her childlike enthusiasm for creativity. She prefers to create alone, in self-isolation. She uses art to cope with the symptoms of her trauma and mental illness. Susan believes in the power of transcendence through the arts, honoring the process more than the presentation. Coming from a severely dysfunctional family which led to group homes and institutionalization in her teenage years, Susan cut her outsider artist teeth at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center’s renowned "Living Museum" art rehabilitation program. She was in the vanguard of the "Girl, Interrupted" female asylum artist wave that has in 20 years become the new normal, yet Susan has maintained the raw essence of that genre imbued with a 21st-century sensibility. Says Susan, "I create playful worlds – all of them raw, intuitive, impulsive, direct, emotional, psychedelic, and whimsical. I like to incorporate text and stream of consciousness writing in my art, including messages from my late twin brother. There are also elements of spiritual symbolism from my Trinidadian Indian ancestry and handsewn fabric throughout my work. I work in small and large format encompassing textile, mixed media, painting, body prints, and hand-made dolls."
 

vermilion (she/her/hers) is a make-something-out-of-nothing artist. Her textile art, collages, and assemblages have developed as of late into installations that have an underlying social or political message but also fulfill a need for playfulness, humor, surprise, uniqueness. Her plan is to create an international artist retreat, a habitat made out of blue bottle walls, mosaics, lumber and metal castoffs, on a patch of land by the woods. 

 

Proceeds support Fountain House, a nonprofit that empowers people with serious mental illness to live and thrive in society.

Photo courtesy of mx.enigma.