Still from Viva Ruiz’s Thank God for Abortion.

Still from Viva Ruiz’s (2022 Grantee) Thank God for Abortion, the Vatican, 2019.

Still from Viva Ruiz’s Thank God for Abortion, Washington DC, 2021.

“Try Abortion – Live a Little”

Video still from Immigrantula, a telenovela by Viva Ruiz.

A poster for Monotony, a telenovela by Viva Ruiz.

Thank God for Abortion Telenovela Pilot

Viva Ruiz is a community educated artist and advocate, and a descendant of factory-working Ecuadorian migrants, working in performance, film, writing, music, and dance.

Artist Bio

Thank God for Abortion Telenovela Pilot is a scripted narrative, using the hallmark drama of the form to disseminate the message that abortion is healthcare. Set in an abortion clinic and a church, the work demystifies abortion care and illuminates the conflicts subjected upon people who have undergone abortions. Over the last 20 years, abortion has been criminalized and made increasingly inaccessible—Thank God for Abortion seeks to rehumanize the people who need an abortion, and the people who provide that care. A bilingual TV pilot episode sets the stage for a complete season of a series on an international broadcast platform. This project is directly inspired by how public health initiatives since the 1990s partnered with telenovela creators to write storylines that helped normalize conversations and care around HIV/AIDS.

Discipline
Artistic Activism, Narrative Film
Award Year
2022
Status

In Progress

Themes

Creative Capital Carnival 2022

From the Journal

The unprecedented decision of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to abortion has spurred many of us to action. In the days and months ahead, those of us who believe in reproductive justice will be making our case in the streets, in the courts, and in the halls of legislative bodies. As we turn to this important work, it is crucial that we do not ignore a realm that has a fraught relationship to politics: the practice of art and its power to change us.

June 27, 2022
A black and white portrati Viva a queer fluid EcuaNew York femme in a drapy black spandex party look with a large THANK GOD FOR ABORTION logo in white on the front. She wears glasses her hair is in a braid and she is smiling, arms and hands outstretched and inviting.

Viva Ruiz

Brooklyn, NY

Viva Ruiz is a community educated artist and advocate, and a descendant of factory-working Ecuadorian migrants raised in Jamaica, Queens. They are a maker working in performance, film, writing, music, and dance with a collaborative practice grown out of their experience in NYC nightlife. Their original telenovelas have been shown at festivals and art spaces such as Mix NYC, Outfest LA, Deitch Projects, PS1 Moma, and Futura in Prague. Her short film Chloe Dzubilo: There is a Transolution, a Visual AIDS commission, premiered for the 30th annual Day With(out) Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2019. Ruiz founded the Thank God for Abortion initiative in 2015, an ongoing awareness-raising project with multiple manifestations. In 2019 Ruiz’s solo exhibition “Pro Abortion Shakira : A TGFA Introspective” was shown at Participant Inc, and became the first artist awarded a residency from the pro-abortion cultural organization Shout Your Abortion. In 2020 Ruiz directed the TGFA Anthem music video. They are a member of the Carribbean queer party/artist collective, RAGGA NYC.  In 2020 Ruiz was a part of In Plain Sight, a coalition of 80 artists fighting immigrant detention and the culture of incarceration conceived of by Cassils and rafa esparza, and authored the phrase ARREST ICE that was skywritten over NYC ICE offices.

From the Journal
Events