Sadie Lune’s 31st Birthday Shoot

Sadie Lune interacts with her audience during a public performance outside the 16th & Mission BART station

I wanted to put up a project I made last semester while photographing for SF State’s [X] press newspaper.

This story was about San Francisco performance artist Sadie Lune. Her performance piece had many unpredictable aspects. It was located outside 16th Street BART, which is a Free Speech zone. Because it involved interaction with observers and passersby and many more spontaneous elements, we could not predict how it would go. I teamed up with multimedia producer Lindsey Leake, a fellow SF State student, who recorded the audio for the day and put the piece together.

We did not expect the performance to go as long as it did, so some of the technical difficulties we faced involved running dangerously low on battery and filling up memory space. At one point I realized the memory cards I had on me would not be enough and I had to delete photos whenever there was an idle moment, in order to make more space.

Another challenge was just basic human bodily needs. We took off from my house at around 10:30 a.m., the performance started at 11 a.m. and it went on until around 5 p.m. We did not eat or take any bathroom brakes, and we were on our feet the entire time. At one point Sadie had to take a break, and it was the only brake of the show. Lindsey and I couldn’t go because we had to stick around at the spot and watch the stuff, so we just sucked it up.

Nonetheless it was a very fun shooting situation for me. I used mostly the telephoto, which would not seem necessary under these circumstances, as our main subject wasn’t that far away. However, in order to get the close in detail shots, I could not afford to get up really close as my presence would certainly disrupt the show, so while the wide angles were nice to have to show some environment, bringing the telephoto really saved my life in this situation.

Plus, it was another lovely “getting in the zone” situation where all of my energy and attention were focused on shooting for six hours straight.

Lindsey put together the audio portion of the piece with just a few suggestions from me. Sadie has been a source to me in the past who has given me great access into her life and perspective in past projects, and so I was very much invested in the final result of what this piece looked like, even if I was “just” the photographer for it.  I was very happy with the story arch Lindsey put together via audio, and how she used my photos.

Here is the piece.

And I also had to write a story to go with it, here it is:

A few days before her 31st birthday, performance artist Sadie Lune made a special request to her friends, family and community. She wasn’t asking for expensive or hard to find gifts, or anything tangible, really.

She wanted them to send actions for her to perform on her birthday. These actions would have to, in some way, teach Lune something about love. This could refer to love within a variety of contexts, such as self love, spirituality, family, friends, sex, romance or community.

In her request letter, Lune wrote in part: “…the actions can be fun, silly, personal or intense. The idea of Teaching Myself to Love consummated in an action is open to your interpretation.”

The only limitation to the actions was that nothing illegal would be allowed, as she would perform the actions in public. On 16th and Mission Streets, outside the BART station, which is as public as it gets.

Part of the reason she chose that spot is “because it’s a really interesting intersection of people, people from all sorts of demographics and lifestyles are in this space, and it is a very vibrant space, but it also has a little bit of a dark edge to it, and I’ve just been really attracted to it as a place to do performance art for a long time,” Lune said.

On November 11th, at 11 a.m., Lune arrived wearing all purple -including hair, makeup and nails- and with large bags full in purple supplies in tow.

While she prepared for all the actions ahead of the performance, she did not reveal in advance what these would be, and she did not know for sure how long the entire performance would last.

This BART station is a free-speech zone, and the cylindrical concrete structures which are part of it often double up as a stage. On this day, Lune made a cozy bed out of it, with purple sheets, pillows and an umbrella. Despite the lack of promotion for the performance, a crowd began to surround Lune while she was still setting up.

The actions were a mixed bag of humor, intensity, vulnerability and joy. The first action consisted of brushing her hair for ten minutes. She interpreted the action very literally, brushing also her armpit hair, and then reaching her comb under her skirt, she even brushed her pubic hair to the amazement of passersby.

Some of the actions involved interaction, while others were more contemplative. At one point, she stared at herself in the mirror, in complete silence for seven minutes. Some of the observers who were just walking in would wonder why there was a crowd staring at a woman who was staring in the mirror, and those who had been watching Lune from the beginning would fill in the details for others.

Another self-loving action that left the audience in awe was as simple as smelling her armpit, “slowly, deliberately and with delight,” as was instructed to her. Also in the vein of self-love, was applying a mud mask, eating yogurt with figs, and massaging moisturizer to all of her skin.

Lune’s mother also contributed an action, instructing Lune to read a book given by her. So as part of the performance, Lune read an excerpt from a book titled “Scientific Curiosities of Sex Life,” a book originally published in 1912. Lune and her audience laughed as they listened to antiquated views that portrayed homosexuality as a disorder.

One of the most successful actions had Lune reaching out with her hands to passersby while staying on her improvised stage, and luring them into coming to her for an embrace. The audience also responded well when Lune brought out a cake and chocolate and offered to feed others, while also asking that they feed her. This went on until the cake was almost finished.

Other actions involving interaction and reaching out to community included greeting everyone she could by their name, and asking the names of those whom she did not know. She also spent some time complimenting women as they walked by the space.

The performance went on until almost five o’clock, with a duration of almost six hours. While most of her audience came and went, some people stayed for several hours. “I didn’t expect to have a standing audience for so much of, or even the whole time, I thought it would be more people just kind of walking by, but some people stayed all day,” said Lune.

“I felt really grateful to those people, that they were taking the time out of their day to participate with me in that way.”

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