Watercolors by Cassandra (I would die for your patronage)

This video was commissioned as part of Debt Positive, an exhibition at Flux Factory (https://www.fluxfactory.org/debt-positive-2/) curated by Caitlin Foley and Misha Rabinovich. It helped me to get a cursed painting into the office of a banker who was profiting off of the bankruptcy of the Chicago Public School system. "In her life, nothing could stop Cassandra from fulfilling her prophecy: to put brush to water, water to color, and to drag these colorful pooled liquids across the rough surfaces of paper. She painted and painted, through droughts that were personal, economic and earthly. Cassandra’s courageous personal liquidity never stopped touching paper, people and things. If you’d like to find out more about Cassandra’s work, and the special, exclusive opportunity to profit from it as part of your portfolio, please invest your time in this video."

Workers’ Aquarium

To conclude Cassie Thornton’s residency at Trust (trust.support), the artist presents findings from a project called Workers’ Aquarium, which was developed within the frame of GameChanger. During this residency a new method was developed and practiced that marries Workers’ Inquiry with a holistic peer to peer health practice, The Hologram, to reflect on our overlapping work conditions in the apocalypse. The residency period was used to unearth the lines of solidarity and the potential for collective action among disparate cultural workers from in and around Trust, The Hologram and GameChanger who don’t necessarily see themselves as part of a single community. Are we all breathing the same water?

Men Running Out of Money

The text of this video is culled from a survey of 18 womxn-identified US residents. The ages (not specified in the survey) ranged from mid twenties to mid 60s. Responses in the video are from two questions: 1. How often do you run out of money? If you do run out, how do you feel, and what does it cause you to do? Internally and externally. 2. What forms of economic self defense do you practice? From scams to jobs, how do you get money? As a way to relay some of the survey responses, I have invited men from the gig economy website ‘fiverr’ to perform some of the responses to two of the most blatantly economic questions in the survey. The decision to deliver the responses in this way was based in my own curiosity-- because I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see men articulate economic or emotional vulnerability, or openly offer detailed advice, share experiences, or to express a desire for solidarity in this way.

Feminist Economics Yoga ad for Thunder Bay

In 2017 I taught Feminist Economics Yoga inside a law school in Thunder Bay, which is in Northern Ontario, Canada.

The Hologram: You can’t cut THIS without multiplying it

Organized in partnership with Pluto Press, artists Cassie Thornton (Eyebeam Rapid Response Phase 1 Fellow) and Tina Zavitsanos will reflect on their shared attention around holograms, debt, and care and Thornton’s recently published pamphlet, The Hologram: Peer to Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future, included in the Vagabonds series, edited by Max Haiven. Both artists will consider Thornton’s central question, “In an era when capitalism leaves so many to suffer and to die, with neoliberal ‘self-care’ offering little more than a bandaid, how can we take health and care back into our hands?” This book launch is a place for that conversation between two people who have been ricocheting their lasers of attention off of similar emotional objects in different places, for decades, and will conclude with a question and answer session moderated by Ruth Catlow from Further Field.

Peer-to-Peer Health Support, interview on Against the Grain, KPFA in Berkeley

The Transformation of the Gifts of Life into Money with Genevieve Vaughan, Miki Kashtan, Vandana Shiva, + Cassie Thornton

Maternal Gift Economy Movement Salon #27 - The Transformation of the Gifts of Life into Money Presented by Genevieve Vaughan and the International Feminists for a Gift Economy

Laboratoire : Care-to-care with Marina Sitrin, Cassie Thornton

À l’opposé du récit médiatique d’une fureur individualiste qui aurait vidé les supermarchés, de nombreuses communautés se sont formées dans la crise du Covid-19. Marina Sitrin et Cassie Thornton explorent la radicalité du care de pair à pair dans leurs ouvrages Pandemic Solidarity et The Hologram. Alors que les systèmes économiques et politiques dominants laissent mourir et souffrir nombre d’entre nous, comment reprendre la main sur ce qui nous est essentiel, à savoir notre santé physique et mentale ? Lorsque les structures étatiques échouent, l’on se tourne les uns vers les autres. À l’opposé du récit médiatique d’une fureur individualiste qui aurait vidé les supermarchés, nombreuses sont les communautés qui se sont formées ou renforcées dans la crise du Covid-19. Marina Sitrin, sociologue, avocate et activiste, explore ces initiatives citoyennes solidaires à l’échelle mondiale dans Pandemic Solidarity édité l’été dernier, tandis que Cassie Thornton, artiste et activiste, a récemment publié The Hologram, un manuel de création de réseaux de soin féministes de pair à pair.

Radical Care Panel

Radical Care with Miki Kashtan and Cassie Thornton, moderated by Kaira Jewel Lingo on March 23, 2021 - In our capitalist society, people try to meet their needs by earning enough money to take care of themselves. This system puts us out of relationship with one another and creates real scarcity, allowing people who have power and resources to more actively meet their needs. What if we imagined a different future—one that would allow us to live in a state of abundance and connection? What if we chose to believe that everybody’s needs are powerful and valid and are intended to be met through relationships with others, rather than through money or other forms of exchange? This kind of shift could create a world that is healthier, more connected, and equitable. Join Miki Kashtan, the founder of Bay Area Nonviolent Communication and Cassie Thornton, an artist creating an alternative care network in a conversation moderated by Kaira Jewel Lingo, a Dharma teacher whose work includes both imagining alternatives to capitalism and healing racial trauma. Organized by Blade of Grass.