CHERYL is a gender, it’s a color, it’s a number, it’s a lifestyle…
—Destiny Pierce

On Saturday, June 16, the artist collective CHERYL threw a party celebrating kitsch and the bubonic plague. Partygoers jerked their arms and stomped their feet, wearing the hell out of homemade medieval costumes. Face paint, skintight body suits, and elaborate masks swam in and out of a chaotic vision. In a bizarre realm where dreams, nightmares, and the ’80s combine, people fully engaged in the abandon of having only a few hours to live.

CHERYL is an extreme where strangers and friends connect over remixed pop and fake blood. For a few hours everyone had the plague, and they would live and die together. No politics, no institutional critique, they only ask for a few hours of human to cat-masked human interaction.