#ShineYourLight: Corinne Loperfido

#ShineYourLight is our new series in which we Glitz & interview our favorite groundbreaking artists & activists who inspire us by shining their light on issues they are most passionate about. This week we caught up with Corinne Loperfido, artist, activist, and founder of the colorful feminist art collective PussyPowerHouse. Sign up here for her amazing six month online course on zero-waste living, “Minimalism for Maximalists”.

Tell us a little about yourself, how you #ShineYourLight & what do you choose to shine it on?

I am a disciplinary artist, women's empowerment and environmental activist, community event organizer, and professional organizer. I studied graphic design in college and used that to create posters for my underground events and for the last decade have been producing immersive events from DIY queer performance art dance parties to daytime all ages educational community healing events. Most of my projects are collaborative and I love to work with other artists who I admire and co-create new worlds for us to inhabit that exist outside the dominant paradigm of the patriarchy and the empty consumer culture of the capitalism system. I shine my light by being myself and creating safe space for others to be themselves, too. I want to change the way we view the earth and our relationship to it by getting back to our roots and empowering women to use their voices and stand up for what they truly want and deserve.

What does your dream sustainable future look like & what do you see as some necessary steps to get there ?

To get to a sustainable future, we all need to seriously check ourselves and significantly scale back our consumption of earth's resources. That applies to food, fabric, energy, fossil fuels, plastics, all of it. We live in a time when consumption is at an all time high, and we are beyond the breaking point of what earth can handle from us. The idea of "trash" has only existed for around 150 years, and we have already polluted all our water, depleted our soil of nutrients, over fished, over farmed, over harvested, and over used most resources on the planet without ever stopping to check in and see how much harm we are doing. A sustainable future looks like people growing their own food, composting our food scraps and poop to feed back to the soil, re-localizing and shopping small instead of from corporate box stores with no morals, and taking personal responsibility for our actions and impact. Necessary steps are for people to get clear on their needs vs wants, stop supporting single use plastics, to listen to the wisdom of indigenous elders, and to start tending the land where they live in accordance with the seasons and resources available where they actually are.

What kind of injustice have you felt/witnessed in your life that drives you to create change?

I see the injustices of people who do not have access to clean water, nourishing food, or enough time to actually take care of themselves because they are trapped into this system of slavery and consumerism. The self hatred imposed on us via the media and marketing campaigns designed to make us feel unworthy and ugly are manipulating innocent people into prioritizing selfish and petty behaviors that result in a massive amount of toxic waste (plastics, chemical cleaners, beauty products, single use "convenience items", etc) being introduced into our natural world. We are all trapped in this false "global economy" in which we are forced to work jobs we hate to live in places that we don't love and by the end of the day we are so tired and emotionally exhausted that we have nothing left to give, and tending to a garden is the least of our concerns. There is an epidemic of apathy and "netflix and chill" that is keeping people tired, in debt, lonely, and hopeless and people don't even know what to do about it so they just succumb to the numbness and are inactive on most levels. I know there are other ways of relating to the earth, to community, to our sex, to our bodies, to the idea of family... all of it, but we have to LIVE as an embodiment of what we want to see the world transform into, so I work to create healthy culture that is respectful of all beings, human and non-human.

How are the social issues you are passionate about connected to environmental issues?

We are Earth, plain and simple. There is no difference between "the environment" or "the natural world" and humans. In the "civilized world" we think that we have outsmarted nature, as if we are above nature, or that humans are smarter than the divine order of the complex systems of the earth that have existed for millions of years. The earth does NOT need humans, but humans act like we are above the needs of the earth. I wonder where people honestly think we are going to get more resources from once we have raped the earth to the core and truly used up every last possible resource because we needed to meet the "bottom line" in a capitalist system. Women are raped, used, abused, and disrespected on the daily by power hungry colonizing men, and the earth is treated the exact same way by these businessmen who want to control everything. By empowering women and giving a voice to those who have been systematically murdered and/or silenced, we are starting to see a shift and old white men are loosing their grip on the world as we know it, and new ideas and ways of being are taking form and change is starting to happen. The patriarchy is crumbling before our very eyes, and while it is a terrifying time with the climate crisis, it is also a very invigorating time as the rest of us create new culture and inspire one another to take action and be the change we want to see in the world.

What are some self care rituals you do to keep hopeful & keep going?

I spend time outside as much as I can and connect with the elements - the soil, the water, the wind, the stars in the sky... the birds and bugs and plants and the sound of trees in the breeze. I take time for connecting with other artists and activists, I create events and opportunities for us to dress up, express ourselves, and be free in the fucked up world of oppression and suppression. I take baths (ideally in a natural hot spring), ingest plant medicine to connect to the earth, eat healthy (local + organic as much as I can find it) and get dressed like the goddess I know I am every day because I refuse to fall victim to apathy and indifference, no matter how gnarly things get. If we give up, it's over. If we do nothing different, things stay the same. If we want to see change, we have to EMBODY IT with every single action and choice and dollar we have, or else the same old shit is going to happen just as They have planned. I refuse to be controlled, I refuse to give in and go along with their agenda, and I hope that me living my truth is helping to inspire others to live theirs as well.

What is some advice you would share with young artists & activists today?

I would encourage artists and activists to work together to make these changes fun and exciting and creative, and not see them as a burden or "too hard" because ya know what... change is coming whether you like it or not, so we might as well embrace it and celebrate it and learn to make it our passion. The revolution needs to be sexy (and not in the Playboy kind of way we have been force-fed since birth) or else people are not going to get into it, and art + community will feed to fire of the New World because we MUST do something to get back into alignment with the cycles of the earth. The best advice I ever received was to stick to it and not give up, because just when you are over it and ready to move on to the next thing, that is when other people will finally be open to it and the moment will come for the scales to tip in that direction. These social and environmental changes need to happen on a mass scale, but they are SO large and we just might not see the fully realized results of our work in our lifetimes. No matter what happens, we must keep going and stay focused on the goals. The earth is begging us to change our ways, and the more I learn, the more committed I am to healing her and giving back after living in this demented culture that does nothing but take take take.

What are some organizations/helpful resources doing awesome work that you would suggest readers at home look into/volunteer time with?

I highly recommend everyone check out the podcast For The Wild - there are over 100 episodes and each one is profoundly life changing and eye opening as to what is happening to our earth because of our greedy approach to resource extraction, and also what we can do about it. I suggest people watch The Story of Stuff and follow them on instagram @storyofstuff to understand the system we live in and help break the spell. Lastly, find out where your local farmers market is and go support that instead of the big air conditioned grocery stores carrying produce from all over the world, and volunteer at a farm or urban garden that is close to you and get to know the people in your area who are responsible for growing the food you are eating. The more aware you become and connected to the things you consume, the more conscious you will be and able to make smarter decisions about where you give your time, energy, and money.

Just for fun~ whats your favorite color (or mix) of Glitz?

I love red, always, but with glitter you really can't go wrong in my book. Thank god someone figured out non-toxic glitter!