Elizabeth M. "Beth" Stephens (born November 18, 1960) is an American filmmaker, artist, sculptor, photographer, professor and two time Chair of the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz. Stephens, who describes herself as "ecosexual", collaborates with her wife since 2002, ecosexual artist, radical sex educator, and performer Annie Sprinkle.[1]
Early life
Stephens was born in Montgomery, West Virginia, on November 18, 1960. Her family co-owned Marathon Coal-bit company. She grew up in Appalachia, moving to Boston, New Jersey, and later to San Francisco.[2] In her youth, her family attended a Presbyterian church.[3]
In December 2004, Stephens committed to doing seven years of art projects about love with her wife and art collaborator, Annie Sprinkle. They call this their Love Art Laboratory. Part of their project was to do an experimental art wedding each year, and each year had a different theme and color. The seven-year structure was adapted to their project by invitation of artist Linda M. Montano.[6] Sprinkle and Stephens have done seventeen art weddings, fourteen with ecosexual themes. Critics relate the project to contemporary political debates including marriage equality,[7]ecofeminism, and the environmental movement.[2][8][9] Critics also note that Stephens' work explores and challenges the validity of the boundary between what is "art," and what is "pornography."[10]
The Schlesinger Library at Harvard University acquired Stephen's papers, primarily focused on the Love Art Laboratory, and including her and her partner's work on Goodbye Gauley Mountain and their work at Documenta 2017. [11]
Ecosexuality
Starting with their 2008 performance wedding to the Earth, Stephens and her partner Annie Sprinkle became pioneers of ecosexuality, a kind of earth-loving sexual identity, which states, "The Earth is our lover." Their Ecosex Manifesto proclaims that anyone can identify as an Ecosexual along with being "GLBTQI, heterosexual, asexual, and/or Other." They married the Earth, Sky, Sea, Moon, Appalachian Mountains, the Sun, and other non-human entities in nine different countries. [12]
Stephen's and Sprinkle's 2011 White Wedding to the Snow at the deconsecrated Saint Brigid's Church (Ottawa), by then St. Bridid’s Centre for the Arts, followed their performance at Montreal's Edgy Women Festival. [13]
Feature films
Most recently Stephens has produced and directed two feature documentary films with Annie Sprinkle: Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2017) and Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (2013),[14] a film addressing Mountaintop removal mining near her birthplace and its effects on the environment and nearby communities.[15]
In 2017, Stephens and her wife/collaborator Annie Sprinkle were official artists in Documenta 14. They presented performances and visual art, lectured, and previewed their new film documentary, Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure.[17][18]
2013 Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story
2006 Exposed; Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art
2006 Orange Wedding Two
2006 Red Wedding One
2005 Kiss
2004 Lüba; The Mother Teresa of Art
1992 Do You Mind?
1989 Interviews with Oaxacan Women
1989 Women Eating
Articles
2022 Wallace, Megan, Earth Day: , Earth Day: Welcome to the world of eco-sex, Cosmopolitan Magazine, UK (Apr 22 2022).
Kupper, Oliver, "The Earth as Lover," Autre Magazine, Issue #14 Spring/Summer 2022, Conversation between Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens and Kim TallBear Photography by Damien Maloney (Spring 2022).
Whitcomb, Isobel, Take the Earth on a Date: Inside the Ecosexual Movement, Sierra: the Magazine of the Sierra Club (Mar 5 2022).
Owens, B.D., “Assuming the Ecosexual Position: by Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, eco/art/Scotland (Feb 3, 22).
2017 Stephens, Elizabeth and Annie Sprinkle. “Ecosex Manifesto,” “Sense and Sensuality,” special issue, CSPA Quarterly 17, 7-11.
2017 Documenta 14: Daybook, eds. Laimer, Quinn, Adam Symczyk, Prestel Press, Munich-London-New York, 2017, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, April 24 pgs 19-20.
2012 Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, On Becoming Appalachian Moonshine, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, Vol. 17, No. 4, August 16, 2012 pgs 61-66
2010 Elizabeth Stephens, Becoming Eco-Sexual, Canadian Theatre Review: Theatre in an Age of Eco Crisis, Volume 144, Fall 2010.
2010 Post Porn Politics; Queer_Feminist Perspective on the Politics of Porn Performance and Sex_Work as Culture Production, Post Porn Brunch, Elizabeth M. Stephens, Annie M. Sprinkle and Cosey Fanni Tutti, ed. Tim Stüttgen, B_Books, Berlin, Germany pages 88–115
2008 Live through This; On Creativity and Self Destruction, Double Trouble in the Love Art Lab: Our Breast Cancer Experiments. ed. Sabrina Chapadjiev, Seven Stories Press, New York, pp 105–117
2004 Interview of Annie Sprinkle for Women and Performance — 20th Anniversary Issue, New York University Press
1998 Looking Class Heroes: Dykes on Bikes Cruising Calendar Girls The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire
Books
2021 Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover with Annie Sprinkle, Jennie Klein, Una Chaudhuri, Paul B. Preciado, and Linda M. Montano. University of Minnesota Press.[19]
Film/Video
2017 Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure
2013 Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story
2011 Purple Wedding to the Moon, White Wedding to the Snow
2010 Purple Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains
2009 Blue Wedding to the Sky/Sea Video
2008 Green Wedding Four to the Earth
2007 Big Nudes Descending a Staircase
2007 Etant Donnees
2007 Yellow Wedding Three
2006 Exposed; Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art
^ abMcSpadden, Russ (June 27, 2013). "An Interview with Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle". Earth First! Journal. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013. Following her artistic dreams, she left the trappings of racism and heterosexism in Appalachia to New York and San Francisco where she married the Earth, the Sea and Annie more than fifteen times.
^Buckner, Clark. "I Do". San Francisco Bay Guardian. Vol. 39, no. 17. Retrieved November 4, 2013. the artists make their personal lives public and, in so doing, challenge the policies of the state. Stephens and Sprinkle refuse to be denied their right to marry and lay claim to it on grounds that exceed the authority of the government. They present marriage as a cultural institution shaped by interpersonal dynamics and demonstrate the power of groups to construct communal bonds and systems of meaning on their own terms. In the process, they thematize the art already at work in social institutions – and in marriage and gender roles in particular.
^Khimasia, Anna (September 15, 2011). "Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens". Canadian Art. Archived from the original on April 25, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013. Each Sprinkle-and-Stephens wedding stresses not only sexuality and the environment, but also collaboration, participation and community. With more than 60 local, national and international performers and artists, and a technical and production team of 30, the Ottawa nuptials were also a tribute to performance in its broadest sense. The 300-plus guests were invited to participate by marrying the snow; wedding rings were provided in the afternoon's program, and guests were encouraged to make individual vows to the environment.
^Dickinson, Peter (2010). World stages, local audiences: Essays on performance, place and politics. Manchester University Press. pp. 116–124.
^Dennis, Kelly (2009). Art/Porn, A History of Seeing and Touching. Berg Press, New York, NY. pp. 71, 172.
^Johns, Merryn (March 1, 2011). "Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens: why these "love artists" are making the environmental movement sexy and fun.(TOP TEN REASONS WE LOVE...)". CURVE. 21 (2): 80.
^Sprinkle, Annie. "White Wedding to the Snow". LoveArtLab. University of California Santa Cruz. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
^Archer, Greg (August 15, 2013). "Goodbye Gauley Mountain: One Of The Most Seductive Environmental Documentaries Of The Year". Huffington Post. Retrieved November 4, 2013. In between, the audience is offered a heartfelt look at the people, the towns, the companies responsible for the drama and more. Although Stephens narrates the story, the duo produced, directed, and star in the film together. But it's Stephens who gives the film much of its heart. Part autobiography, part coal mining history, and part performance art soiree, the sobering mix of honesty and playfulness is downright infectious.
^Ruiz-Rivas, Tomás (February 18, 2006). "Love Party 2". Archived from the original on January 8, 2014. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
