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Sisters of Survival (S.O.S.) was an anti-nuclear performance art group founded in 1981 in Los Angeles, California. The group was active until 1985.

History
The group was founded by Jerri Allyn, Nancy Angelo, Anne Gauldin, Cheri Gaulke, and Sue Maberry, all of whom were affiliated with the Los Angeles Woman's Building and the Feminist Studio Workshop. Allyn and Gauldin were also co-founders of the performance art group The Waitresses while Gaulke and Angelo were members of the Feminist Art Workers. The Sisters of Survival chose the image of nuns in rainbow-colored habits as the primary symbol of their sisterhood, inspired by Angelo's earlier use of the nun persona Sister Angelica Furiosa. The Sisters of Survival used performance art as a way to build coalitions and networks on an international scale around the anti-nuclear movement of the early 1980s.

Performances and installations
In response to Cold War-era anti-nuclear protests in Europe, the Sisters of Survival launched their major three-part project, End of the Rainbow, in 1981. End of the Rainbow consisted of a series of performances and lectures in the United States and western Europe, ending in 1983 with a traveling exhibition of the same name that showcased anti-nuclear art from North America and Europe and the activities of the Sisters of Survival. One of their first and most well-publicized performances was Shovel Defense, a collaboration with Marguerite Elliot in which the Sisters of Survival danced around a mock graveyard of shovels in front of public buildings such as Los Angeles City Hall and the Federal Building. The performance was conceived as a satirical response to U.S. Undersecretary of Defense T.K. Jones's claim that in the event of a nuclear attack, "if there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it." The piece received coverage in local television, radio, and print media.

Members of Sisters of Survival were also involved with coordinating the 1982 and 1983 anti-nuclear art festival Target L.A. with Asian Americans for Nuclear Disarmament, Lee Waisler, David Lumian, and other local artists. In the spring of 1983, the Sisters of Survival traveled to several countries in western Europe to collect anti-nuclear artwork and generate international dialogues through lectures, exhibitions in the Netherlands and London, and participatory performances of Public Action at war memorials, public squares, and peace camps. They also have been featured in various group exhibitions, including The Atomic Salon (1982) at the Ronald Feldman Gallery and Secular Attitudes (1985) at the Los Angeles Institute for Contemporary Art.

More recently, Sisters of Survival created an installation for the 2011 Doin' It in Public exhibition at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, including a modified version of Shovel Defense.