Saturday, December 11th
Reflections from a Movement Art Whorestorian / The Sex Worker Gazes Back
2:45 PM – 4:15 PM EST
Talk Description: Reflections from a Movement Art Whorestorian / The Sex Worker Gazes Back will be a presentation space that documents, names and traces sex worker movement organizing, art making, curating, and resistance from 2015 – 2021 in Chicago and NYC as the notions of “Decrim” and sex work positivity took hold in ways previously unseen by mainstream artists, art workers, and the general public. This presentation will specifically reflect upon: the “/Sanctuary/” exhibition of sex worker and undocumented immigrant art works at the University of Illinois at Chicago, art and protest vigils mourning the murder of massage worker Yang Song, the first Hacking//Hustling convening at Eyebeam NYC which featured the resistance-object installation “Whores Will Rise,” the indoor and outdoor art protest happenings against the closure of Backpage.com and against SESTA/FOSTA in Chicago and NYC, craftivist whore meet-ups at Bluestockings Books, the community participation and programming of “ON OUR BACKS: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work” at the Leslie Lohman Museum, the short-lived (and complicated) installation “Sex Workers’ Pop-Up” that debuted as the pandemic hit NYC, and Sophia Giovannitti’s performance work “Untitled (Incall)” which opened at recess art just as NYC began to reopen cultural spaces. This list, while long, is not exhaustive. This is only a cross-section of the explosive art/protest activity that the last six years has seen (most notably) in the US (as our movement spaces have not garnered such mainstream notoriety) and internationally for sex workers’ rights and the movement for decriminalization. My presentation places these happenings and intentional actions to take back gallery and public space led by sex working people, hustlers and survivors amongst the broader acknowledgement of sex/sexuality in art spaces.
Q&A Session: “Exhibiting Sex Workers’ Art and Histories” is a combined Q & A for the presentations “Is Moderation Violence?: Exhibiting Sex Worker Art” by Lena Chen and “Reflections from a Movement Art Whorestorian/The Sex Worker Gazes Back” by Brit Schulte. For further information about the presentations, please click on the subsessions.
Speakers:
Register for the virtual conference here.