Sister Serpents

Their goal as a collective was to empower women and to increase awareness of women’s issues through radical art.[3] Sister Serpents' public manifesto stated:

“SisterSerpents proclaims an end to women’s acceptance of their own oppression. SisterSerpents is fierce and uncompromising, refusing to plead or gently persuade. We recognize and confront the misogyny that exists deep within society…Our struggle hopes to bring the demise of the system that allows for our brutalization… We involve ourselves with idea warfare, instead of the physical and emotional violence which has so long been used upon us… We bare our ideological fangs for the purpose of shocking… Our work is done anonymously… SisterSerpents has no modesty."[4]

Founding member Jeramy Turner stated, “The purpose of SisterSerpents is to use art as a weapon to battle against misogyny.”[5] Members of the group were adamant that they were not a political organization; they sought to use art as a weapon for social change, but not in the context of being hired to make posters for political organizations.[4] The work of Sister Serpents was described by some as "militant";[6] members of this group unabashedly sought to make men feel oppressed by encountering their art.[5]

The group worked anonymously, with loose membership[7] and no affiliation with any formal institutions.[3] In order to become involved, women had to agree that art was the main focus of the group's work, and that all artistic work created by the collective should aim to attack misogyny.[5] Two of the only members who were publicly named were founding members Jeramy Turner and Mary Ellen Croteau. Their Chicago-based group expanded and by 1991 included chapters in San Francisco, Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle,[1] New York, and Hamburg, Germany.[3]

Sister Serpents used posters, art, and stickers to convey their feminist protest message.[7] Many of their posters were created to be produced in multiples and wheat pasted in public spaces, out of a desire to make their message seen in the streets,[1] and included messages such as "Rapists are the Boys Next Door."[3] One feminist pro-choice poster by the group was printed in Industrial Worker.[8] Bright stickers included the "Tips for men" series, with messages such as “tips for men: don’t rape”.[7] Stickers were created to be put over advertisements, with slogans such as “This sells rape. Don’t buy it.” and “Misogyny. Look it up. Stamp it out.”[1] Sister Serpents also created a zine, MadWOMAN Magazine, that was distributed nationally.

The group became immediately infamous for their first poster, which depicted a fetus (in the style of right-wing pro-choice posters)[1] along with text including the phrases: “For all you folks who consider a fetus more valuable than a woman: Have a fetus cook for you; Have a fetus affair; Have a fetus clean your house.”[4] Members explained this artwork directly: “Our poster points to the current fanaticism we call ‘fetus worship’, which preposterously elevates a fertilized egg to the status of ‘unborn child’ and relegates women to the role of parasitical host.”[9]

Their artistic influences included the Berlin-based Dada artists, whose photomontage style and ironic slogans are imitated in the work of Sister Serpents,[1] and the style of the Surrealists.[10] Many of their artworks provided commentary on Western art traditions, such as their re-creation of classical paintings of naked women which replaced the subjects with naked men, or a re-creation of Rodin's The Thinker which elongated the subject's head into a long penis.[11]

Several of artworks created by the collective are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.[12]

The group created a logo of a winged snake, which was turned into a rubber stamp to be stamped in red ink on their posters. This logo was designed to be both a strong and humorous image;[1] the group took their name and this logo from the primordial snake that did not die but that shed its skin to emerge into another life, and that has the ability to open peoples’ eyes to the knowledge of good and evil.[8]

Sister Serpents was accused of "reverse pornography"[3] and came under fire from the American Family Association and the Heritage Foundation. These negative responses were viewed by collective members as proof that their art was necessary.[6]

• "The Forgotten History of the Controversial Sister Serpents," by Sarah Laskow, March 14, 2018. Atlasobscura.com
• "Sister Serpants: Art as a Weapon" online exhibition