Reclaim UGLY Healing Retreat & Transformative Imagination Conference

Image description: Promotional image for Reclaim UGLY 2021 Conference, featuring 5 colorful figures of various sizes, abilities, genders, and styles plus one dog on a leash. They all hold a large green sign that reads in yellow text: “Reclaim UGLY Healing Retreat and Transformative Imagination Conference”

Our Bodies Are Wonderful Sites of Pleasure & Liberation.

Image description: Logo for the Reclaim UGLY Conference 2021. A large, deep brown belly is featured in the center, with a hand lovingly grabbing a roll of skin. A pink and coral circle frame the belly with layered pink, yellow, peach 4 pointed stars accenting the image.

10 Days of healing, community building, and imagination generating discussions, performances, panels, and activities devoted to healing, reclaiming, and imagining our lives, relationships, communities, and movements free from the impacts of uglification.

Day 1-4

Healing Retreat Intensive – Fall in love with yourself with Reclaim UGLY. Primarily facilitated by Reclaim UGLY Retreat/Conference team. Get vulnerable, have fun, be embodied, create art, and make friends while healing from the impacts of uglification, isolation, and bullying. While most of this period will be interactive, there will also be performances, guest facilitators, keynotes, panelists, screenings, and more. This time is dedicated to the healing and magical arts of imagination, community care, and compassionate self love.

Day 5-9

Now that we’ve started the process of healing ourselves, let’s collaborate to also heal the world. Participants will meet in professional, movement, art-based, and age-appropriate tracks and respond to pre-recorded daily panels, talks, or workshops. Learn and grow while collaborating with small and intimate groups to create real-life action plans that replace uglification with transformative imagination and radical inclusivity. Delve deep into your passions and interest to create a more liberated and joyful world.

Day 10

Showcase Time! Join us for the Reclaim UGLY Transformative Imagination, Radical Future, & Healing Arts Community Town Hall! We will all come together and present what we’ve learned, shared, cherished, and loved with the other conference participants. We are more than just talk. We are here to create concrete and tangible steps towards actual change.



I happened upon y’all in the midst of a really rough episode and the one session I attended brought me comfort and peace. Y’all are doing important work and I’m so grateful.

-Black healing october participant

Image description: Two rows of photographs with two on the top row and three on the bottom. Top left image is of a person standing in front of a crowd of people inside Oakland Sol. There are pink and red balloons and string lights in the background. The image on the right is of Vanessa Rochelle Lewis and three other people around a table with a background of a pink wall and a white bookshelf full of books. The first image on the bottom left is of six people sitting in chairs inside of Oakland Sol with a staircase behind them and a black backdrop that has the word “Ugly” in gold letters repeated on it. Above the backdrop is a net containing red balloons. The middle image on the bottom is of a group of people, with Vanessa Rochelle Lewis in the center of them, gathered in front of the black background with the gold repetition of the word “Ugly” on it and red balloons falling from the sky onto them. The image on the right is of Vanessa Rochelle Lewis with a microphone in hand, in front of the black backdrop with the gold word “Ugly” repeated on its surface.

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