Nov 1 @ 7pm

DOOM LOOP: San Francisco, Synesthesia, & Holding Onto Hope in Troubled Times (formerly known as Mirror-Touch Medicine Show)

Writer and performance artist Gina Stella dell’Assunta is a life-long San Franciscan and a mirror-touch synaesthete. When mainstream media narratives about her hometown’s supposed “Doom Loop” began dominating the national news cycle, she felt compelled to counteract the false narrative of abject despair. In “DOOM LOOP: San Francisco, Synesthesia, & Holding Onto Hope in Troubled Times,” she applies her mirror-touch synaesthete’s lens to her dearly beloved and deeply complicated city. Using poetry, music, dance, film, drag, and installation art, she takes us on a journey through San Francisco and through the looking glass. If you have ever wanted to commune with the ghosts of Emperor Norton, Sylvester, Jean Genet, and George Michael; fly with the wild parrots; or dance with the sea lions: This is the show for you.

Content Notes: 
Some sexually explicit literary content; no performer nudity (at present — this may change). Several pieces directly describe the genocide in Gaza. Several pieces directly describe cruelty and abuse against unhoused/homeless people.



Access Notes: Fully ADA-accessible space. ASL interpreted & Closed Captioned. (Additional access updates forthcoming!)

Gina Stella dell’Assunta (she/her & ze/hir) is a writer, performance artist, and cultural worker from San Francisco (the traditional territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people), with deep roots in both local and international queer & trans, sex worker, and disability communities. She is a recipient of a San Francisco Artist Grant 2024 from the San Francisco Arts Commission; a featured artist in Ron Athey’s international performance art intensive Darkness Visible; co-curator (with Carol Queen) of Perverts Put Out performance series for San Francisco’s Center for Sex & Culture; and the author of the forthcoming book How To Have A Body. Ze is currently developing hir second multi-media solo show, “DOOM LOOP: San Francisco, Synaesthesia, & Holding Onto Hope in Troubled Times” at San Francisco SAFEhouse for the Arts. You can find her online as @queershoulder, and support her work directly at patreon.com/queershoulder.