40 Kisses (31 Kisses): Meeting Place/Stop Killing Us
40 Kisses (31 Kisses): Meeting Place/Stop Killing Us
Performance with 31 collaborators
Wild Goose Creative, Columbus, OH
April 7, 2017
Versions of the following letter were sent to over one hundred members of my community in Columbus, Ohio.
"Dear _______,
I’m writing to ask you to consider participating in a performance art project that I am staging as part of the event Performance Art Exploratorium at Wild Goose Creative on April 7. The tentative title for the piece is “40 Kisses: Meeting Place/Stop Killing Us.” The basic structure of the piece will involve me kissing 40 different people over the course of 4 hours (6 minutes of kissing each). I would like to invite you to be one of the 40 people.
With this project, I am building on the history of “kiss-ins” as non-violent protest and public action—a strategy used in the 1980-1990s by queer activist groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation—and also creating a structure in which to stage public displays of intimacy that cut across different populations in my own life and the Columbus community more broadly. My hope is that the piece will function as a “meeting place” where people with diverse backgrounds and different identities can be part of a shared public action that affirms non-violence and the commonality of experiencing physical intimacy.
I also hope that the participation of a wide range of people can promote a message of anti-violence towards trans and gender-nonconforming people. 2016 was the deadliest year for reported murders of trans people in the United States in history, and 2017 is already off to a violent start. With this piece, I hope to enact an alternative to this kind of pervasive violence, situating my own gender-nonconforming body within a community public affection rather than violence. By inviting friends, loved ones, colleagues, artists, community leaders, and allies—people I know well and people I don’t know well, people who are performers and people who are not necessarily performers—who are trans, queer, lesbian, gay, straight, and cisgender to participate, my hope is that our collective action sets an intention for a more compassionate future, adding to other social activisms that affirm that “trans is beautiful,” “love is love,” and that gender and sexuality exceed our narrow definitions for them.
The piece will take place from 7:30pm-11:30pm on Friday, April 7, at Wild Goose Creative (2491 Summit St, Columbus, OH 43202). The time commitment would be extremely minimal—literally 6 minutes of kissing, and whatever time it takes for you to arrive and depart. However, if you do choose to participate, I would be delighted if you chose to arrive early or stay after to meet or hang out with other people participating in the project, to see how the piece unfolds, and see the other performance projects taking place as part of the event. If you would like to participate—and I really hope you do—please send me an email address that I can add to a Google Doc on which people will be signing up for time slots.
Lastly, I’m hoping to include at least one member of local government and at least one police officer. I don’t know any members of local government or police officers personally. If you do and if you think they might be willing to participate, could you please put me in touch with them?
Thanks much!
All my best,
-Michael"
In the end, 31 collaborators agreed to participate. The participants included people who are straight, queer, gay, and lesbian, people who are transgender, gender-nonconforming, and cisgender, almost entirely people who are white, people from widely varied socio-economic situations, and one person running for city council. I did not find a police officer to participate in the project.
During the performance, additional performances were taking place in the space, including spoken word performances by Balitronica Gómez and Guillermo Gómez-Peña.
I am profoundly grateful for the participants in this project.
Video documentation excerpts and select photos below.
Performance with 31 collaborators
Wild Goose Creative, Columbus, OH
April 7, 2017
Versions of the following letter were sent to over one hundred members of my community in Columbus, Ohio.
"Dear _______,
I’m writing to ask you to consider participating in a performance art project that I am staging as part of the event Performance Art Exploratorium at Wild Goose Creative on April 7. The tentative title for the piece is “40 Kisses: Meeting Place/Stop Killing Us.” The basic structure of the piece will involve me kissing 40 different people over the course of 4 hours (6 minutes of kissing each). I would like to invite you to be one of the 40 people.
With this project, I am building on the history of “kiss-ins” as non-violent protest and public action—a strategy used in the 1980-1990s by queer activist groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation—and also creating a structure in which to stage public displays of intimacy that cut across different populations in my own life and the Columbus community more broadly. My hope is that the piece will function as a “meeting place” where people with diverse backgrounds and different identities can be part of a shared public action that affirms non-violence and the commonality of experiencing physical intimacy.
I also hope that the participation of a wide range of people can promote a message of anti-violence towards trans and gender-nonconforming people. 2016 was the deadliest year for reported murders of trans people in the United States in history, and 2017 is already off to a violent start. With this piece, I hope to enact an alternative to this kind of pervasive violence, situating my own gender-nonconforming body within a community public affection rather than violence. By inviting friends, loved ones, colleagues, artists, community leaders, and allies—people I know well and people I don’t know well, people who are performers and people who are not necessarily performers—who are trans, queer, lesbian, gay, straight, and cisgender to participate, my hope is that our collective action sets an intention for a more compassionate future, adding to other social activisms that affirm that “trans is beautiful,” “love is love,” and that gender and sexuality exceed our narrow definitions for them.
The piece will take place from 7:30pm-11:30pm on Friday, April 7, at Wild Goose Creative (2491 Summit St, Columbus, OH 43202). The time commitment would be extremely minimal—literally 6 minutes of kissing, and whatever time it takes for you to arrive and depart. However, if you do choose to participate, I would be delighted if you chose to arrive early or stay after to meet or hang out with other people participating in the project, to see how the piece unfolds, and see the other performance projects taking place as part of the event. If you would like to participate—and I really hope you do—please send me an email address that I can add to a Google Doc on which people will be signing up for time slots.
Lastly, I’m hoping to include at least one member of local government and at least one police officer. I don’t know any members of local government or police officers personally. If you do and if you think they might be willing to participate, could you please put me in touch with them?
Thanks much!
All my best,
-Michael"
In the end, 31 collaborators agreed to participate. The participants included people who are straight, queer, gay, and lesbian, people who are transgender, gender-nonconforming, and cisgender, almost entirely people who are white, people from widely varied socio-economic situations, and one person running for city council. I did not find a police officer to participate in the project.
During the performance, additional performances were taking place in the space, including spoken word performances by Balitronica Gómez and Guillermo Gómez-Peña.
I am profoundly grateful for the participants in this project.
Video documentation excerpts and select photos below.