What is your project idea and how will it help you achieve that?

VENUS Rx is an interactive astro-feminist performance oracle drawing wisdom from matrifocal mystery traditions. Visitors receive guided astro-magic embodiment sessions with MIDHEAVEN OR NAH breaking down their love language, based on the Venus placement of their natal horoscope.  Venus “Goddess of Love” in a natal chart indicates our desired love language, ways we bond, values, aesthetic sense, relationships, sense of justice, self-worth and innermost Earth. Participants exit the oracle revived to the process and practice of love, with an increased capacity to meaningfully relate.

What kind of impact—artistic, intellectual, communal, civic, social, political, environmental —do you hope your project will have?

I make art crystallizing around bringing the power of consciousness back to sexuality. Probing the archetypal realm for intersectional, intergenerational and ancestral healing, my installations, wearables and happenings are an Art form bloated with the genital poetry of the Goddess. VENUS Rx aims to correct the patriarchal monopoly on mythic destiny, fortifying collective social-emotional wellness around the concept of Love most broadly defined. Solidarity requires a felt connection displaced by techno-capitalism. Venus Rx is a performance that happens within 1-on-1 encounters which invite participants to tap into their interior feminine energy represented by planet Venus. Using technology to quickly 'read the stars' from a hand-held device - each exchange affords a nourishing moment of connection and intimacy based in sharing, storytelling, vulnerability and empathy.

How do you want to grow as a designer, artist and maker? How can the Inspiration Fund help you grow?

Creative community can’t exist in today’s techno vacuum - it is nurtured by cultures of care. Drawing on years of hands-on experience within NYC’s feminist art underground as a queer Mother and teaching artist doing socially-engaged work, with grief I acknowledge the many body-based issues facing the community, heightened by feelings of isolation, fear, depression. Within thirty days of receiving my fund award, I'll be able to commit full time to building my astro-oracle online and committing to weekly pop-ups in public spaces, carving out intentional space for this milestone piece to be a singular focus. With the Imagination Fund strategic support, I foresee increased visibility, accessibility and professionalism for this very essential work as I increase my ability to serve populations most in need. Disavowing the culture of body-dysmorphic toxic positivity throttling spirituality in the West, community-wide impacts include commitment to daily spiritual hygiene; conscious eros/birth justice; responsible relationship to Earth and an increased Social Justice IQs reflecting deeply on dynamics of privilege, power and access.