Nancy Brooks Obituary – Death: New York City, NY Gay Activist and Fierce Pussy Projects Founding Member, is Dead

Nancy Brooks Obituary; The community of New York City, New York mourns the unexpected death of a founding member of Fierce Pussy Projects and part of the community. Nancy Brooks Brody passed away suddenly, shocking her friends and family.

Manhattan is where Nancy Brooks Brody was born. She has performed solo multiple times, most recently in 2018 at the Fortnight Institute in New York City, NY. The Exquisite Corpse, The Drawing Center, New York, NY (1993); Le Regard de L’Autre, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen, France (2002); Art & Activism, Kunst und politischer Aktivismus in New York, Mannheimer Kunstverein, Mannheim, Germany (2014); and Confinement: Politics of Space and Bodies, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (2019) are just a few of the group exhibitions in which she has participated.

A collective of LGBT female artists is called Fierce Pussy. When fierce pussy was founded in 1991 in New York City, it was a direct outgrowth of our involvement in AIDS activism during a decade of escalating political mobilization for gay rights.

Using low-tech and low-budget resources—ancient typewriters, found photographs, our own baby pictures, and the printing supplies and equipment from our day jobs—we collectively responded to the urgency of those years.

Among fierce pussy’s projects were wheat pasting posters on the street, renaming streets in New York City after well-known lesbian heroines, redesigning the LGBT community center restroom, printing and distributing stickers and t-shirts, a greeting card campaign, a video PSA, and, more recently, a number of installations and exhibitions in galleries and museums.

At first, ferocious pussy was a group of friends that included Suzanne Wright, Pam Brandt, Jean Carlomusto, Donna Evans, and Alison Froling.

Many more women showed up to the meetings and took part in the wheat paste, stenciling, and stickering activities. Four of the original core members—Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Zoe Leonard, and Carrie Yamaoka—remain involved in the group.