May26

Interview with Controversial Performance Artist, Jex Blackmore

In this episode of Femmecult Radio, I interview writer, filmmaker, artist and all around effective troublemaker, Jex Blackmore. She is well known for her confrontational performance art pieces which are usually held in civic spaces. Her work addresses the links between moral religious rhetoric, sexuality, and political policy.

[Religion] is a powerful form of manipulation where even the act of questioning is deemed sinful and something you can be condemned to an eternity of punishment for. It has a profound effect on the capacity for people to be curious, and inquire and challenge the established power structure.
From Femmecult Radio Episode 018, Interview with Jex Blackmore

Sanctions of the Cross Performance art exhibit by Jex Blackmore — **“Sanctions of the Cross”** was a response to an anti-choice protest held at a Planned Parenthood location in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Good Friday. The procession was a testament to the burden of oppressive mandates endured by women who are forced to consider the religious opinions of the legislature while making personal family planning decisions. (from www.jexblackmore.com)

She has often been the target of protest by the Catholic Church for her outspoken and confrontational work. She has also been called a tireless crusader for bodily autonomy, in that her work seeks to interrogate oppressive social institutions and ideas that undermine reproductive rights, and the freedom of women to choose what happens to their own bodies.

She has been featured in many publications including TIME, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, NPR, Cosmopolitan and Salon, and was featured in the 2019 documentary “Hail Satan?” Her reproductive rights advocacy has ranged from disrupting anti-choice rallies to debating the Westboro Baptist Church and her recent exhibition in Detroit, “Sex Militant”, was listed as one of the best art exhibitions of 2019 by the Chicago Reader.

…you have this systemic oppression of people who are not white men in particular, and white men are elevated to the status of the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most successful and then godly even, and it’s impossible to say that doesn’t have a profound impact on people’s valuation of themselves and societal value.
From Femmecult Radio Episode 018, Interview with Jex Blackmore

End Forced Motherhood — MARCH FOR LIFE: “THE DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN LIFE”
Political Performance, 2019

“The Dignity of Every Human Life,” provided a concurrent response to the March for Life. The performance represented the sting of each degrading insult, each contradiction, and each celebratory roar at the expense of the “unmothers” who have been deemed less than those who have had the means and desire to have children. (from www.jexblackmore.com)

In 2020, her endurance film “An Undue Burden”, that premiered at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, interrogates barbaric, abusive state legislation that forces women to wait 24 hours or more following initial counseling by abortion providers before receiving the procedure.

In this interview we talk about the importance of building supportive communities in hostile environments, the problem with moral frameworks that divide people, and the harm caused by oppressive systems require citizens to conform to ideologies that do not address practical realities of everyday life. Thanks for listening! (Podcast available on iTunes, Spotify and Stitcher too..)

The church has created a system where what is evil is people expressing their free will…
From Femmecult Radio Episode 018, Interview with Jex Blackmore