What if priests were leather daddies? What if Christ were female? What if (dis)abled bodies were worshipped? And what if the Eucharist were a goth dreamscape?

Black Mass Blood Ritual invites participants to enter into an occult reimagining of Catholic mass through the lenses of chronic illness, BDSM culture, & non-normative bodily desire. The project is a continuation of the artists’ collaborative work exploring the intersections of sexuality, (dis)ability, care, & dependency through installation & participatory performance.

They are interested in the ways crip & queer sexualities coexist, intertwine, & are made powerful together. Drawing from the 1995 documentary BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism (directed by Michelle Handelman) & Robert McRuer’s 2006 contemporary discourse Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, the installation & performance critiques the medical industrial complex via BDSM practices. The artists want to show a reclamation of agency over the sick & (dis)abled body—and the queer, politically-beleaguered body—through explorations of sadomasochistic sexual practices.