Rites of Passage Project‘s mission is to empower cis and trans women of all ages and ethnicities to recognize and reclaim rites of passage throughout our lives – whether it be menstruation, pregnancy or abortion, divorce, menopause, healing trauma, immigration, claiming queer identity, or any other significant initiatory life experience.
Historically, many of these initiations have been either lost, forgotten, or stigmatized for the last several hundred years in the post-colonial world. In the US, as a fusion of variously uprooted peoples with fractured cultural identities, the majority of us lack a language with which to recognize or honor initiation. Therefore, the message that every experience and stage of our lives is valuable and sacred, is both deeply personal and profoundly political in a culture where aging, loss, and death are shunned.
The Rites of Passage living museum installation-performances and other iterations in print and film are intended to act as catalysts for introspection, transformation, and connection and to inspire us to create new ways to honor the myriad cycles and transitions in their lives. Ultimately, Rites of Passage seeks to expand the human potential to embrace the full spectrum of our lived experience.
