If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, please join us at the
reception. If you will be traveling to San Francisco, you can apply
for access to this location based collection.
Sex Worker Media Library Opening Reception at the Center for Sex &
Culture and Sex Worker Art Auction
Hosted by Annie Sprinkle and Carol Queen
Jan 31st, 2010 7 PM
Location: Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103 415-255-1155
Website: http://www.sexworkermedialibrary.org/
Sex Worker artist Carol Leigh (AKA Scarlot Harlot) and the Center for
Sex & Culture (CSC) present a reception for the opening of the CSC
Sex Worker
Media Library. Created with the goal of preserving sex worker culture
and discourse, funded by a grant from the Creative Work Fund, the
library features a pathfinder-based delivery system of digital
materials documenting the stories, artistic expressions, history, and
legal and social positions of sex workers internationally.
The library is located on-site at CSC and available for viewing by
application only. Project director Carol Leigh explains, "This
resource is designed to assist researchers, scholars and activists
(including sex workers, of course) in their efforts to understand and
support sex workers rights and culture. This resource is sorely
needed as we survive in a world of stigma, discrimination and
criminalization."
Library categories include: art and performance documentation;
political demonstrations, marches and street theater; festival films
by and about sex workers; interviews/oral histories of sex workers
and allies; and documentation from conferences around the world.
The CSC Sex Worker Media Library is funded by a grant from the
Creative Work Fund (http://www.creativeworkfund.org), a San Francisco
foundation that supports collaborations between Bay Area artists and
nonprofit organizations. The Creative Work Fund's highly competitive
awards celebrate the role of artists as problem solvers and the
making of art as a profound contribution to intellectual inquiry and
to the strengthening of communities. According to Creative Work Fund
Director Frances Phillips, grant recipients, "...push artistic
boundaries, benefit social and medical services, and reflect the
vibrancy and vitality of the Bay Area."
"This is an essential resource because so much of the history of sex
worker activism is on video and not in print," adds SWML advisor Dr.
Melinda Chateauvert, a historian at the University of Maryland.
"We are very honored to be able to house these important materials,"
says Center for Sex & Culture Executive Director, Dr. Carol Queen.
"The Creative Work Fund award our project received reflects respect
for sex workers within the arts communities and a recognition of the
valuable cultural contributions made by sex workers."
In sharp contrast, our communities have been subject to a new wave of
repression. George Gascon, the newly appointed San Francisco police
chief is proposing policies which further punish sex workers and
their clients, despite strong support in the 2008 elections for a
referendum to decriminalize sex work.
"The CSC Sex Worker Media Library is a crucial resource to preserve
and encourage the courageous efforts by the community of sex workers
in San Francisco, and around the world who resist this oppression as
they survive," says SWML Project Manger and University of California
(Davis) instructor, Katrina Fullman.
San Francisco has been central to the development of the
international sex worker rights movement. The city's unique history
as 'the Barbary Coast' set the stage. The sex workers movement began
in the early 70s gaining national attention with the founding of
COYOTE by Margo St. James. The First National Hookers Convention took
place in San Francisco in 1973 at Glide Church. CSC Sex Worker Media
Library creator, Carol Leigh, coined the term 'sex worker' in San
Francisco in 1978. Bay Area sex workers, activists and educators
inspired and sustain the international political and social sex
workers rights movement including: Margo St. James, Annie Sprinkle,
Robyn Few, Susie Bright, Gloria Lockett, Rachel West, Tamara Ching,
Priscilla Alexander, Carol Queen, Victoria Schneider, Johanna Breyer,
Joseph Kramer, Dawn Passar and many more.
Many performers and musicians from the Bay Area have earned their
living as dancers, phone sex operators, prostitutes, dominatrixes,
adult film actors and models. Documentation of festivals, performance
and cabaret events include Jennifer Blowdryer's 'SmutFest,' Dee Dee
Russell's 'Anti-Fashion' events, Tallulah Bankheist's 'Whore Church,'
Annie Oakley's 'Sex Worker Art Show Tour,' and SF Sex Worker Festival
performances like 'Lick My Kitty' (after the deceased Kitty Kastro),
Mariko Passion's 'Whore-A-Palooza' and Kirk Read's 'Army of Lovers.'
Conference documentation includes a wide range of international sex
worker rights conferences from ISWFACE/Los Angeles COYOTE's 1997
'International Conference on Prostitution,' the ICRSE 'European
Conference on Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration,' Desiree
Alliance conferences including 'Re-visioning Prostitution Policy:
Creating Space for Sex Worker Rights and Challenging
Criminalization,' Ziteng of Hong Kong's 'Out In The Sun-Legal
Constraints and Possibilities in Protecting the Rights of Sex
Workers,' COSWAS of Taiwan's 'First International Action Forum for
Sex work Rights' and many more.
International resources include Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers
at http://www.anpsw.org and sexworkerspresent.blip.tv and Durbar
Mahila Samanwaya Committee at http://www.durbar.org.
Access to the video materials is location based at San Francisco's
Center for Sex & Culture. Access requirements are specific to each
collection. Applications are available online at the website
(http://www.sexworkermedialibrary.org) for on-site access to these
collections.
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