“Snax’s GIFs, “NO BAD WHORES JUST BAD LAWS,” “I like your energy, I wanna experience it,” and “¡Borikén Libre!” are technicolor, glitchy collages centering images of QTBIPoC and sex workers. Rapidly-shifting and mesmerizing, Snax’s GIFs reference texting and the Internet as intertwined entities within her fantasy scenes of shame-free millennial sex work.” - Hyperallergic, In Portland, An Annual Exhibition by and for Sex Workers
November 8 – December 14, 2019
Public Opening: Friday, November 8, 2019
Gallery Hours: Thursdays & Fridays, 12:00 – 6:00pm; Saturdays, 12:00 – 4:00pm
Portland Institute of Contemporary Art
15 NE Hancock St Portland OR 97212
No Human Involved seeks to complicate narratives of sex work by showcasing artists’ projects that critically examine and engage–and deconstruct and reconstruct–dynamics of emotion, labor, landscape, language, humor, family, identity, and community. In proximity and in conversation, these artists’ conceptually and politically aware uses of material and form combine to question and destabilize our most socially ingrained perceptions and assumptions about gender, power, desire, economy, sexuality, feminism, labor, and love. Artists: Brittany Marie Chavez, Dee Lyrium, Ev Echovia + Bane Belladonna, Eva Wo, Pxssycontrol, Julia Arredondo, Amanda Lee, Juicebox, Kathleen Boudwin, Mona Superhero, Pallace de la Garza, Philip Edward King, Sathya, sean chamberlain, The Stripper Project.
The phrase *“no human involved” (“NHI”) is a slang term that has been commonly used by police to refer to crimes involving the murder or injury of sex workers, drug users, gang members, immigrants, and transient folks, with Black and Brown populations disproportionately affected. Use of the term spiked significantly in 1980s Los Angeles, its increased popularity a reminder of how the dehumanization and criminalization of sex workers and other marginalized populations is consistently enforced, normalized, and upheld by the interlocking injustices and oppressions of capitalism, racism, White supremacy, imperialism, settler-colonialism, nationalism, borders, carceral and police states, patriarchy, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and gender-based violence.The phrase has since been used by numerous artists, activists, filmmakers, scholars, and writers across media, literature, and research to illuminate and bring awareness to targeted forms of violence.
No Human Involved: The 5th Annual Sex Workers’ Art Show speaks to dehumanizing socio-political systems and cultural conditions through the artistic voices and viewpoints of sex workers themselves. Far from just a show “about” sex work, and intentionally subverting or rejecting clichéd romanticized or pitiable representations, No Human Involved seeks to complicate narratives of sex work by showcasing artists’ projects that critically examine and engage–and deconstruct and reconstruct–dynamics of emotion, labor, landscape, language, humor, family, identity, and community. Curated through a competitive, international open call, multiple works by 15 artists span installation, video, photography, new media, sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, and performance. In proximity and in conversation, these artists’ conceptually and politically aware uses of material and form combine to question and destabilize our most socially ingrained perceptions and assumptions about gender, power, desire, economy, sexuality, feminism, labor, and love.
No Human Involved: The 5th Annual Sex Workers’ Art Show is co-curated by Kat Salas and Matilda Bickers of STROLL PDX, a harm reduction, education, and outreach group run by and for sex workers, in collaboration with Roya Amirsoleymani, Artistic Director & Curator, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). It honors the history, spirit, and tradition of STROLL PDX’s annual sex workers’ art show and other grassroots exhibitions of, by, and for sex workers and their communities, while expanding the Portland project’s platform and possibilities through PICA’s space, visibility, and resources.
“Snax reflect her background as a queer, mixed Chinese-American/white femme in her compilation of new media-inspired GIFs, NO BAD WHORES JUST BAD LAWS, ¡Borikén Libre!, and I like your energy, I wanna experience it. Snax’s vibrant videos feature QTBIPoC and sex workers in a whimsical, colorful and luxurious world “free of binaries, shame, and oppression.” In one scene, Snax depicts four nude [people] lounging on a colorful float in a bright blue pool of water, a repositioning of the canonized female nude. One of the[m] holds up a camera, which, from the bird’s-eye perspective of the film, points straight forward, recasting the gaze from herself to the viewer and shifting herself into the position of observer, not the observed.” - Oregon Arts Watch, ‘No Human Involved’: Art by sex workers tells a complex story
Intisar Abioto
Sarah Marguier