Reclaiming UGLY as an Act of Queer Pleasure with Vanessa Rochelle Lewis

The Queer Spirit

Vanessa Rochelle Lewis is the Founding Director of Reclaim UGLY. She is a healer with a satchel full of medicine words, A conjuror with desire to nurture other artists as they create magic and save lives, A faery princess mermaid gangsta for the revolution, A lush-bodied, Black femme Goddess motivated by sensuality and freedom, An educator and performer with a passionate exuberance for silliness, laughter, and the stage, A starlet who doesn’t want to be in the spotlight alone, A lover of all things collective, emergent, and interdependent, A wild-seed born and blossomed in South-Central Los Angeles, A fighter with fists born of circumstance and a heart that refused to harden, A warrior committed to freedom, brow dripping with resilience, wings crusted with diamonds that grew from trauma healed, And so much more.

Episode Highlights

• Vanessa and Nick discuss the way culture has used the label of “ugliness” to oppress, dehumanize and disconnect us.
• Vanessa talks about her journey with her organization, Reclaim Ugly.
• She shares how we can turn ugly on its head to uplift, glorify and love ourselves.
• We explore where we find “uglification” in our country’s history as well as in today’s world.
• Vanessa talks about the importance of taking care of ourselves without perpetuating the harm done to us.
• We discuss the insidious uglification we experienced in recent events such as the January 6th Insurrection of the US Capitol.

Web links

• Find Vanessa at ReclaimUGLY.org
• Connect with her on Instagram and Facebook

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