It’s the day after the election – we come together recommitted to imagining the systemic change that emerges from organizing, protest and ongoing community centered creative practices. The activists and artists who have been on the frontline of political movements know that, even though the election is over, the work continues. Join Viva Ruiz (Thank God for Abortion), Avram Finklestein (Gran Fury and Silence=Death collectives), Harry Cullen (P.A.I.N.), and Ceyenne Doroshow (G.L.I.T.S) for a night of dialogue and performance emphasizing people power at the center of collective change. With decades of experience amongst them, this group shows that creating a more equitable world is an ongoing process.

With Avram Finkelstein, Harry Cullen (P.A.I.N.), hosted by Ceyenne Doroshow, and performance by Viva Ruiz

This is the second event in the Civic Dis/Engagment series at CTHQ (October 23, November 6, November 13) 

The 2024 US Presidential election is just weeks away. Are you feeling terrified of what’s coming? Are you exhausted by electoral politics, but you also feel the need to engage? Let’s talk about it at CTHQ.

How can you engage a system that you refuse? Can disengagement be productive? Can we build within this tension and imagine new realities, new infrastructures for equitable life? This series brings together artists, organizers, performers, healers, and writers, for lively debates to discuss how we work within, through, and/or outside of electoral politics to seed better futures, and how we stay in the fight.

Avram Finkelstein is an artist and writer, and a founding member of the Silence=Death and Gran Fury collectives. His work has shown at MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the New Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, David Zwirner, the Shed, the Museum of the City of New York, Kunsthal KAdE, and the Migros Museum, and is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, the New Museum, the Metropolitan, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. He is featured in the artist oral history project at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, and his book for UC Press, After Silence: A History of AIDS Through its Images, was nominated for an International Center Of Photography 2018 Infinity Award in Critical Writing and Research. He has written for BOMB, frieze, Art21, and Foam, been interviewed by The New York Times, frieze, Artforum, NPR, Slate, and Interview, and spoken at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and NYU. @avramf

Ceyenne Doroshow (pronounced Kai-Ann) is a compassionate powerhouse performer, activist, organizer, community-based researcher and public figure in the trans and sex worker rights’ movements. As the Founder and Executive Director of G.L.I.T.S., she works to provide holistic care to LGBTQ sex workers while serving on the following boards: SWOP Behind Bars, Caribbean Equality Project, and SOAR Institute. As an international public speaker, her presentations include The Desiree Alliance, Creating Change, SisterSong, Harm Reduction Coalition and the International AIDS Conferences and now PRIDE on FX. Ceyenne has published features in GQ, Vogue, TIME, ATMOS, i-D and many other publications. At the present time, Ceyenne is building her leadership academy and envisioning a medical center and combined housing unit in Queens,NY — building sustainability for the community like no other. @doroshow @glits_inc

Harry Cullen is an organizer with P.A.I.N., a direct action group of artists, activists, and people living with addiction founded to address the overdose crisis by targeting the pharmaceutical companies that have profited off the addictions and deaths of over half a million Americans. @hazzzzzzi

Viva Ruiz (she/they) is a community/family/nightlife/sex work educated artist, progeny of factory working Ecuadorian migrants born and raised in Jamaica Queens. Proud to be the “daughter” of beloved Chloe Dzubilo, the punk rock trans femme activist and icon. Ruiz has been building power and birthing pro-abortion aesthetics since 2015 with the #thankgodforabortion experiment. Ruiz is a 2022 Creative Capital grantee and 2022 Art Matters fellow. Intentional about time bending intentional about naming the white supremacist class war we are enduring intentional calling more beautiful worlds into being with and in service to the spirits that walk with them. @thankgodforabortion @chocolatinaruiz