I grew up between New York, South America & the Caribbean. I come from a poor and extraordinary family who taught me to find love and levity in the murkiest waters, and that life is both finite and eternal. We lived our tragedies out loud and suffered the consequences. We are dreamers and spirit-workers of the most everyday kind, and devoted believers that anything is possible, always.

I am both young and old, ripened and emerging, fearless and terrified. I create poems, essays, stories, altars, photographs. I create new ways of perceiving. I create opportunities for the unwavering reverence of the self and the sincere respect for others. I know what it's like to have a numb body, a psychic mind, and a yearning heart. Soy el choclo y el canto, el secreto y la verdad, una bruja, una puta, a wild & feral elusive mystic.

I am a two-time VONA Voices Fellow, the recipient of a Poets 11 Award, and the creator of a chapbook of poetry by people in the sex trade titled, Places of Eclipse. I have been published in LIES: A Journal of Materialist Feminism, as well as the blog The Body Is Not An Apology, and have completed a writing residency at Hedgebrook.

My photography and altar installations, have been on exhibit at SOMArts in San Francisco and Lucas Lucas in Brooklyn, as well as at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in Manhattan. Most recently my work was displayed at the 2020 Sex Worker’s Pop-up exhibition in Manhattan. 

Siempre hay una nueva oportunidad

I long for the possibility of a better us.

Artist Resume

Pluma Sumaq is an emerging poet, writer, photographer and multidisciplinary artist. She currently lives in New Mexico and is pursuing a BFA in photography. 

Publications 

2019 Poem, You Especially, Hustling Verse (Published Anthology), Arsenal Pulp Press

2016 Online Article, Uprooting Whorephobia: Why We Must Change the Stigma of Sex Work, The Body Is Not An Apology

2015 Print Essay, A Disgrace Reserved for Prostitutes: Complicity & the Beloved Community, LIES Vol II, AK Press

Exhibitions 

2022 Group exhibition, On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work, The Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College,

Ithaca, NY

2020 Group exhibition, living altar installation “Nuestra Suerte en la Arena,” Sex Workers’ Pop-Up, The Atrium, New York, NY

2019 Group exhibition, living altar installation “Nuestra Suerte en la Arena,” On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer

Sex Work, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY

2018 Group exhibition, photo series “El Derecho,” Blood Money, Lucas Lucas, Brooklyn, NY

2017 Group exhibition, photo series “El Derecho,” We’re Still Working: The Art of Sex Work, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA

2011 Co-curated, INTERSECTION: Stories Through Art by Sex Workers of Color, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA

Awards & Residencies 

2018 Writing Residency, Hedgebrook, Whidbey Island, WA

2010 Poets 11 Award, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA

Professional Workshops & Fellowships

2018 New York Foundation for the Arts, Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, Oakland, CA

2017 VONA Voices, Philadelphia, PA

2017 Hedgebrook Vortex, Whidbey Island, WA

2017 Las Dos Brujas, San Francisco, CA

2016 VONA Voices, Miami, FL

2016 Interdisciplinary Writers Lab, San Francisco, CA

Studied writing under: 

Elmaz Abinader

Kiese Laymon

Regina Louise 

Brynn Saito

Ronaldo Wilson

Xochiquetzal Candelaria