May 23- 26th, 2003
Organizer Info: FIRST DRAFT Film Titles and Times
See
this other page for descriptions
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YAPPING
OUT LOUD:
Contagious
Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore
Written
and performed by Mirha-Soleil Ross
Associate
Director: Nicole Stamp * Live Score: Reena Katz * Video Environment: Mark
Karbusicky
In Yapping Out Loud, Ross delivers a series of blows in monologue form at anti-prostitution discourses and campaigns, detailing the way they impact, often tragically, on prostitutes‚ working conditions and lives.
She
notes:
When
we examine the conceptions that the government, law enforcement agencies,
social workers, feminists, residents‚ groups, and serial killers have of
prostitution, we get a message that is frighteningly cohesive: prostitutes
are to be silenced, controlled, confined or else eliminated.
Mirha-Soleil Ross is well known for her challenging, humourous, incisive, and politically astute work. Over the last 12 years, she has created numerous performances, videos, and installations she considers „whore activism,‰ artistic and political interventions in a social, political, and cultural context where almost every single aspect of prostitutes‚ work and lives are stigmatized and criminalized. Yapping Out Loud completes a cycle that began in 1990. It synthesizes and summarizes a decade of transsexual and sex worker political and aesthetic development, reflection, and knowledge in a form that is simultaneously both performance art and activist pedagogy.
For this show, Ross sought the collaboration of a pack of gifted artists: Nicole Stamp whose directorial credits include 43 Harsh Variations (CrossCurrents Festival at Factory Theatre), Christian Values (Fringe 2001), Axiom (Rhubarb! 2001); violinist and sound artist Reena Katz whose solo Klezmer electronica project NEEDLETRADE was performed in Toronto, Montréal, and New York to much acclaim; and Mark Karbusicky, a video artist and editor whose work has been exhibited at such festivals as Mayworks (Vancouver), MIX (New York & Brasil), Frameline (San Francisco), Inside Out (Toronto), and Images et Nations (Montréal).
Mayworks‚ Festival of Working People and the Arts is a multi-disciplinary art festival that celebrates working-class culture. With Yapping Out Loud, it continues to build on its track record of inclusion of sex workers and of recognition for prostitution and other forms of sex work as labour. Since 1999, the festival has integrated sex worker specific events, including a film and video program and cabarets. Hailed as a positive gesture on the part of a labour organization, this inclusion has given many sex workers‚ rights activists the hope to eventually see the labour movement become an ally in the struggle to destigmatize and decriminalize prostitution and other forms of sex work.
Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transsexual videomaker, performer, sex worker and animal rights activist originally from francophone Québec but established in Toronto since 1992. Her work has been exhibited at festivals across Canada and the US.
***************************
TALES
OF THE NIGHT FAIRIES
Script
& Direction: SHOHINI GHOSH
Camera
Sabeena Gadihoke/Editing Shohini Ghosh & Shikha Sen/Produced with Support
from the Centre for Feminist Legal Research (Delhi) & MAMACASH (Amsterdam)
May
23rd -24th (Times TBA) Visit website for more info: http://www.bayswan.org/swfest.html
or call 415-751-1659
Five sexworkers - four women and one man - along with the filmmaker/narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organizing and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sexwork. The simultaneously expansive and labyrinthine city of Calcutta forms the backdrop for the personal and musical journeys of storytelling.
The film attempts to represent the struggles and aspirations of thousands of sexworkers who constitute the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committe or the Durbar Women's Collaborative Committee) an initiative that emerged from the Shonagachi HIV/AIDS Intervention Project. A collective of men, women and transgendered sexworkers, DMSC demands decriminalization of adult sex work and the right to form a trade union.
Tales
of the Night Fairies (74-min) was completed in November 2002 and had its
first public screening in January 28, 2003. It was first screened at the
AWID's 9th International Forum on Women's Rights and Development at Guadalajara,
Mexico. Thereafter it has been screened at the Asian Film Festival in Rome
where it was part of a special focus on Calcutta. It was screened at "Warning
Signs" a conference of Women Living Under Muslim Laws in London and recently
at Another World Festival in Hyderabad. The film continues to be screened
for different institutions and groups across the country.
THE
MAKING OF
TALES
OF THE NIGHT FAIRIES
The
Tales of the Night Fairies1 is a 74 min documentary about the struggles
of the women of DMSC, a collective of about 60, 000 sex workers in West
Bengal, India who have come together to fight for their legal and social
rights. One of their demands is that they should be recognised as labourers
and allowed to form a trade union.
The
DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanyay Committee or the Durbar Women's Collaborative
Committee), that emerged from the work of The Shonagachi HIV/AIDS Intervention
Project (SHIP), is the organisation that spearheads the movement.2 Through
the stories of five sex workers (four women and one man) working in the
different red-light areas of Calcutta and the journey of the filmmaker/narrator,
the documentary attempts to make a feminist intervention in the divisive
and contested debate around the issues of trafficking and sex work.
The
Shonagachi red light district comprises of five neighboring red light areas:
Shonagachi, Rambagan, Sethbagan, Jorabagan and Rabindra Sarani. Shonagachi
is one of the oldest and largest `red-light' districts of Calcutta. An
estimated 5000 sex workers reside in about 400 brothels in this area and
this number increases every year. About 25,0000 `flying sex workers' operate
in and around this area. An estimated 24,000 clients visit Shonagachi every
day. The DMSC came into existence when, while working with the projects
of SHIP (Shonagachi HIV Intervention Programme), the sex workers of the
area felt the need to create a platform for themselves. Run entirely by
sex workers and their children, the DMSC today runs about 33 health clinics
all over West Bengal, a cooperative banking system called Usha Multipurpose
Co-operative Society Ltd., a cultural troupe called Komol Gandhar and Shaathi
Shongothon (Companions Collective) comprising of regular clients. Most
importantly, DMSC has set up Self-Regulatory Boards in order to ensure
that minor girls and unwilling adults are not brought into the trade
The
women of DMSC are fighting to amend and finally repeal the Immoral Trafficking
in Women Prevention Act, 1956 (PITA) and various provisions in the Indian
Penal Code of 1897 (IPC) that criminalize sex work. The existing
legislation in India is based on the assumption that all women in sex work
are victims who need rehabilitation and protection from pimps, brothel
owners and traffickers. Sex workers rights groups, both nationally and
internationally, have challenged the idea that sex work is inherently violent
and that all the women in the industry are exclusively victims. These groups
have focused on the fact that the violence that sex workers encounter is
partly the denial of legal rights and partly the stigma that the community
carries. DMSC argues that sex workers are entitled to the same legal rights
as any other person who is involved in other `socially acceptable' forms
of labour. Critical to the work of DMSC is the understanding that distinctions
must be made between "trafficking" that implies forced and coerced prostitution
and consensual sex work. This idea will form the major thematic concern
in the film.
The
documentary attempts to understand and uncover the conjunction of impulses
that has created a dynamic organization like DMSC. It suggests that
the organizing impulse emerges not from top-down developmental attempts
but through the lived experiences of the sex workers and their needs to
create a platform. As will emerge from the narratives of the women,
the role of SHIP as catalyst is unarguably central. However, the documentary
will emphasize how the women themselves have catalyzed their own struggles
for rights. Impelled by various individual and collective reasons the women
of DMSC have forged a collective identity and precipitated the process
of their own empowerment. Through heterogeneous and multiple threads of
individual narratives and stories, the documentary attempts to recuperate
this collective history.
THE PROTAGONISTS
1.
Shikha Das (Shonagachi):
As
the daughter of a sex worker in Shonagachi Shikha Das grew up hating her
mother's profession. When she was old enough to go to school her mother
arranged for her to stay with relatives away from the brothels. While accepting
generous financial assistance from her mother, Shikha's relatives treated
her indifferently. She missed her mother and craved to be with her. But
her mother was adamant that she should not be anywhere near the brothels.
In school, she felt humiliated and small when her friends demanded to know
who her father was or why her mother never visited her. All this
made her curse her mother for bringing her into the world.
Shikha's
mother devoted her life to giving her daughters a good life. Having got
her elder daughter married and settled she insisted that Shikha educate
herself. However, Shikha left school to marry a "no-gooder". (In
the documentary Shikha looks back on her life and remarks, "When in love,
even a wretch seems beautiful.") Despite trying hard to be a good wife,
mother and bread-earner her marriage broke as her husband became increasingly
abusive. She left him and eventually started living with another man who
also turned out to be exploitative and abusive. Through both her marriages
she worked in various capacities in the unorganized sector in order to
bring up her two children. Finally, by pretending to be a sex worker she
found employment with SHIP. It was while working in SHIP that Shikha made
the decision to join the profession. Currently, she is both a sex worker
and one of DMSC's most dynamic members. Her daughter is now nine
years old and studies in a boarding house. "What would you like her to
do when she grows up?" I ask her. "I want to educate her so that
she has many more choices in life than I have had" says Shikha, "But it,
after considering all her options she still wants to become a sex worker,
I will respect her choice. After all, I no longer feel that this profession
is small." Unfortunately, this sequence had to be left out of the final
cut.
2.
Sadhana Mukherjee (Rambagan):
When
Sadhana heard about the health project that SHIP had begun in the red-light
area she was entirely skeptical. She was convinced that it was a scam that
would only end up fleecing the sex workers. When she saw other sex workers
join the organization she was dismissive of them saying that they were
compensating for their inability to procure clients. However, she enjoyed
an independent reputation in Rambagan as a woman who always fought for
justice and took no nonsense from others. The local thugs and extortionists
were wary of her, even scared.
It
was while Sadhana was leading a local resistance against a particularly
oppressive local extortionist called `Lattu' that she started networking
with the sex workers in Shonagachi who had begun to work for SHIP.
The organizing of the sex workers at this juncture eventually led to the
founding of the DMSC. Through the story of her life, Sadhana addresses
the core debates in the film including issues of `coming out' to
the family and fighting the social stigma of being a sex worker.
3.
Uma Mondol (Bowbazaar):
Bespectacled,
gray-haired and in her mid-sixties, Uma Mondol is a regular figure outside
the Bowabazar Health Clinic. She sits with her flip charts and in her inimitable
style explains the dangers STD/HIV to customers. She also hollers
at regular clients in the area, reminding them to get their medical check-ups
done on time. During the early days of DMSC most sex workers, except
Uma, would be embarrassed to use the large flipcharts with their sexually
explicit pictures. Form the start, I've been rather shameless", says Uma
who decided to first educate all the shopkeepers in her area. Witty and
humorous, Uma has an extraordinary gift for poetry. Many of her experiences
and memories have been recorded in verse.
4.
Mala Singh (Khidirpur):
Mala
also did not want to have much to do with DMSC during the early days. Then
one day three Nepal women were brutally attacked in her area and she strongly
felt the need for collective organization. In trying to mobilize against
the lumpinization of the area, Mala began to network with women of SHIP
and DMSC. An admirer of Sadhana Mukherjee, Mala says that she has never
wanted to distribute condoms and that till date she has done almost everything
except door-to-door marketing of condoms. For the last four years Mala
has held important office positions in DMSC. Through various humorous anecdotes,
Mala makes insightful observations around the debates on sex work.
5.
Nitai Giri (Bowbazar)
Nitai
Giri is the only male sex worker protagonist in my film. I had initially
set out to make a film only on women sex workers when Nitai started appearing
in my frames. This began to happen so frequently that I could not ignore
him any longer. Nitai became inducted into DMSC through the persistent
efforts of Uma Mondol in Bowbazar. Initially, Nitai and his friends were
skeptical of SHIP would drive the peer educators away saying that they
were a bunch of frauds. Uma befriended them and eventually convinced them
about the relevance and utility of the Health program. Now Nitai, along
with several other male sex workers are peer educators in the Bowbazar
area. Nitai's inclusion in into the documentary allows the exploration
of certain critical issues around sex work and queerness. "Look at the
way I look", says Nitai in the documentary, "I have long hair, long nails
- what other work would people accept me in." Nitai is a cross-dresser
whose most passionate involvement is with Komol Gandhar, the cultural wing
of SHIP.
6.
The Filmmaker/Narrator as Protagonist:
I
am a peripheral protagonist in the film. My personalized narration relies
on anecdotal retellings of childhood memories and experiences of shooting
the film. My childhood memories of forbidden areas, notions of the good
and bad women and my own discomfort with heteronormativity and notions
of normalcy inform the soundtrack. I negotiate both pleasurably and
uneasily the "respectable" and "immoral" spaces within the city. I straddle
both and belong to neither.
THE CITY OF CALCUTTA
Calcutta
is the inescapable backdrop for the human protagonists and eventually a
protagonist in the film. Conventionally, sex workers have always
been relegated to the invisible boundaries of red-light areas. In Tales
of the Night Fairies, I have tried to visually confound borders between
red-light areas and the rest of the city just as I have tried to erase
the distinctions, albeit imaginary and/or constructed, between the bodies
of sex workers and non-sex workers. I have tried to place the protagonists
against the expanse of the larger city in a filmic gesture suggesting the
reclamation of the city by the sex worker. The central protagonists move
out of red-light areas to stake their claim on the rest of the city. I
have shot the brothel area in the same way that I have shot other non-red-light
areas of the city. I have self-consciously drawn parallels between the
two opposing spaces. While maintaining the "authenticity" of actual protagonists
and locations I have attempted to use lighting and framing in a way that
moves away from certain traditions of documentary realism that has frequently
been deployed to represent the lives of the less fortunate.
A
major sequence in the documentary represents the holding of the three-day
Millennium Milan Mela (The Millennium Carnival Meet) conceived, organized
and hosted by the sex workers of the DMSC. The Mela (that can be translated
as both `fair'/fairground and carnival) was held in Calcutta's Salt Lake
Stadium, a prominent and popular venue. The mela was attended by a large
number of sex workers from the Asia Pacific region, ordinary citizens and
members of the city's intelligentsia. The events included seminars, workshops,
cultural programmes, games and open fora on contested issues around gender
and sexuality. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the city, a
public event saw such a visible participation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgendered people.
The
mela regularly punctuates the narrative of the film. In the documentary,
the mela provides the only space where members of stigmatized communities
and those of so-called "respectable society" meet. The events captured
on camera are a visual testimony of the organizing power and the political
activism of the sex workers. They also represent a visual space that is
affirmative, public and celebratory. At another level the `mela' transcends
its physical and geographical space. Historian Dipesh Chakrabarty has pointed
out that traditionally, the `bazaar' or the `mela' is "that unenclosed,
exposed and interstitial `outside' which acts as a meeting point of several
communities".3 As a space that allows for encounters with strangers who,
as Chakrabarty argues, have always been seen as "suspect and potentially
dangerous" the `mela' facilitates negotiations around familiarity and unfamiliarity
and trust and mistrust.
THE MUSIC
Musical
memories frequently shape our intangible associations with people and places.
Therefore, the `found' music that informs the soundtrack of Tales of the
Night Fairies constitutes one more layering of directorial interpretation.
In the 70's many of us grew up with the popular Puja songs of R.D. Burman
and the fusion music of Ananda Shankar. The credits open to Ananda Shankar's
Walking On while my memories of growing up with the streets of Calcutta
are evoked through the R.D. Burman and Asha Bhonsle duet "Jayre Jayre"
("As time flows unstoppably, my heart escapes uncontrollably..."). At the
end of the film the song reappears but in the newer re-mixed version that
became popular in the 90's.
Each
time, I return to Calcutta there is always new music adding rhythm to the
city. Bhoomi's "Pocha Kaka" (`Rotten Uncle') is one such composition. The
words and music somehow attached themselves to Dipti di and Sadhana di
in the film. It may have all started with my cameraperson insisting that
we shoot Sadhana di's routine of going to the fish market. The lyrics from
Pocha Kaka ("There's no returning home without catching the fish") becomes
a gesture towards the Bengali culinary obsession with fish.
To
my mind, the most beautiful woman in the film is Nitai. Therefore, the
songs associated with conventional femininity become his. Salil Chowdhury's
musical tribute to Tagore's `dark skinned woman' and the tawaif (courtesan)
song from the feature film Sahib Bibi Ghulam become musical motifs for
Nitai. The 70's film Amar Prem was made from a Bengali original starring
Uttam Kumar. It's a romantic love story about a married man's relationship
with a prostitute. We grew up in Calcutta loving both films. As Mala and
I float down the Hooghly River on a boat we sing the popular song "Chingari"
from Amar Prem. I wonder whether anyone from my generation has ever sat
on a boat on the Hooghly and not sung this song.
If
Nitai articulates my idea of conventional femininity, Shikha embodies my
idea of the beloved who waits endlessly for her lover. She is introduced
by a song in which Radha exhorts the bee to go and tell Krishna that her
body burns in desire and anguish because she so longs for him. The song
is sung by the singer Dilruba from my beloved Bangladesh.
The
opening and closing song "Who Chali" ("There she goes...) is a re-working
of the hit song "Mai Chali" ("Here I go") from the 60's film Padosan. The
song is about metaphoric ventures into labyrinthine lanes where the looters
of love are waiting to make their kill. What better song than this to express
the pleasures and dangers of unpredictable sexual encounters?
Shohini
Ghosh, April 2003, New Delhi
Shohini@vsnl.com
Shohini
Ghosh is Reader, Video and Television Production at the Mass Communication
Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia (Jamia University), New Delhi.
As
Visiting Associate Professor (1990-1996) at the Department of Communication,
Cornell University, USA, she has taught courses on Gender, Media and Representation
and Video for Development and Social Intervention. She has conducted training
workshops on gender and the media for different organizations in India
and Bangladesh including UNICEF, Dhaka. Ghosh works in the area of film
and television culture. She has worked and published on issues of speech
and censorship, sex work and sexuality. Between April-June 2001, Ghosh
was given a Visiting Fellowship at the Globalization Project, Centre for
International Studies, University of Chicago, to work on her project on
Indian Media in the Nineties.
Ghosh
has extensive production experience as director/producer of educational
films for the University Grants Commission (UGC) countrywide classroom,
and as an independent documentary filmmaker. She is also founder member
of Mediastorm Collective, India's first all women documentary production
collective which received The Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Work
among Women Media Professionals in 1992. Tales of the Nightfairies
(2002) is her first independent film.
1 The
title is taken from the play Raat Porider Katha or the Tales of the Night
Fairies conceived, produced and performed by the women of DMSC.
2
The Bengali word Durbaar means indomitable or unstoppable.
3
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. "Open Space/Public Space: Garbage, Modernity and India",
South Asia vol xiv, no.1, 1991
***************************
Negotiating
Sex Workers' Rights: Calcutta 1997
C.J.
Roessler Director, Carol Leigh Editor (15 min)
A video
montage based on footage acquired by Director C.J Roessler at the Calcutta
Sex Worker's Conference in November 1997. The Sex Worker's Manifesto is
a document composed by the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanyay Committee or the
Durbar Women's Collaborative Committee) DMSC demands decriminalization
of adult sex work and the right to form a trade union.
This
experimental video combines graphic text, montage and music and a reading
of the manifesto.
Excerpts
from the manifesto--
"A
new spectre seems to be haunting the society. Or maybe those phantom creatures
who have been pushed into the shades for ages are taking on human form
- and that is why there is so much fear. The sex workers' movement for
last few years have made us confront many fundamental questions about social
structures, life, sexuality, moral rights and wrongs. We think an intrinsic
component of our movement is to go on searching for the answers to these
questions and raise newer ones . . .
Sex
workers movement is going on - it has to go on. We believe the questions
about sexuality that we are raising are relevant not only to us sex workers
but to every men and women who question subordination of all kinds - within
the society at large and also within themselves. This movement is for everyone
who strives for an equal, just, equitable, oppression free and above all
a happy social world. Sexuality, like class and gender after all makes
us what we are. To deny its importance is to accept an incomplete existence
as human beings. Sexual inequality and control of sexuality engender and
perpetuate many other inequalities and exploitation too. We re faced with
situation to shake the roots of all such injustice through our movement.
We have to win this battle and the war too - for a gender just, socially
equitable, emotionally fulfilling, intellectually stimulating and exhilarating
future for men, women and children."
***************************
Princesa(2002)
Goldman, Henrique
Director
Henrique Goldman
Writer
Ellis Freeman, Henrique Goldman, Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque, Maurizio
Jannelli.
Stars
Ingrid de Souza, Cesare Bocci, Lulu Pecorari, Mauro Pirovano, Biba Lerhue.
Running
time 93 minutes
Made
Italy/Germany/UK 2000
At the start of Princesa, we see a small girl looking inquisitively at a young woman (Ingrid de Souza) sitting on a train bound for Milan. But then, as border officials ask for papers, we discover the truth. The young woman is in fact a young man, Fernando, formerly a Catholic Brazilian boy who plans to work as a prostitute to pay for a sex change.
Upon arriving in Milan she hooks up with Charlo (Biba Lerhue), an old friend, who introduces Fernanda to Karin (Lulu Pecorari), a middle-aged transvestite, who acts as the boss and mother to a large dysfunctional family of transvestite hookers. Fernanda's beauty quickly makes her a hit with the clients and with Karin, who takes her into her home, as slowly she saves up the money to pay for her operation.
Then her world changes when she meets Gianni (Cesare Bocci), a reserved, married businessman, and experiences a not entirely successful first encounter. Despite this, he feels the flames of passion rekindled inside him and leaves his wife to start a touching and romantic relationship with her.
Life seems to be a fairy tale for Fernanda, her Prince Charming coming along to rescue her from a life of servitude, giving her the thing she dreams of most, the chance to become a real woman. But life is rarely a fairytale, and soon she must decide whether her dream is really what she wants.
Princesa is based on the book of the same name, a semi-autobiographical story, co-written by the real Fernanda. Director Henrique Goldman sought her input and so the story metamorphised from a fairy tale into a searching look at personal identity.
Nevertheless, there is still a great deal of magic in the film and the first two thirds retain the hope of a dream ending. Unfortunately, in real life things are never as easy, and Fernanda committed suicide before the film was completed, echoing the making of Leaving Las Vegas.
Despite, or perhaps because of, using non-professional actors, Goldman spins a moving story and allows the audience to empathise with the characters. In particular, de Souza, as Fernanda/Princesa, is the calm centre of the storm. At present, I do not know whether s/he is a real transvestite, but the performance is beautiful, if subdued.
Princesa is a charming fairytale for the new age, and guaranteed to tug a few heart strings.
**********************
Diary
of Evelyn Lau by Sturla Gunnarsson (93 min)
Evelyn
Lau is a major poet and writer in Canada. Early in 1986 Lau ran away from
her unbearable existence, as a social outcast in school and a suppressed,
unloved daughter at home in a traditional Chinese household. She started
working in the sex trade in Vancouver and became addicted. Living mostly
at social institutions and chronicling in a diary her psychologically battered
life and her struggle as an emerging writer. The manuscript became a bestseller
when it was published in 1989 under the title Runaway. Diary of a Street
Kid. This movie is directly based on Ms. Lau's book.
**********************
Deconstructing
crack ho (a memoir) by Ariel Lightningchild (7min )
One
woman tells it like it is examining her experience as a survivalist sex
worker and sexually exploited youth.
**********************
Swallow
by Ariel Lightningchild (11min)
An
exploration of issues often marginalized amongst the celebration of some
of the sex workers movement such as race, class, and mental illness.
**********************
aka
Kathe by Minda Martin (55 min)
The
saga of Mexican-American family from Tucson confronting a violent loss,
caught in the cycle of violence towards women. This disturbing video focuses
on the story of one sister involved in prostitution, using drugs, who was
eventually murdered in Tucson.
**********************
Hiding
Out by Thomas Mournian & John Keitel (5 min)
San
Francisco's underground railroad of Safe Houses keep kids off the street
and out of the abusive psychiatric hospitals many have escaped from (as
reported by Thomas Mournian in the Bay Guardian April 1998).
I was
a Teenage Prostitute by Juliana Piccillo (18 minutes)
Juliana
Piccillo has worked as a prostitute, journalist, filmmaker, and university
instructor. Her film, I was a Teenage Prostitute, looks back at her seventeenth
year in which she worked as an in-call prostitute at a suburban massage
parlor.
**********************
"NHI
- No Humans Involved" by Deborah Small, Elizabeth Sisco, Carla Kirkwood,
Scott Kessler and Louis Hock (excerpts 15 min)
"NHI
- No Humans Involved" was a public art project, which took place in San
Diego in 1992. These artists produced this work to address the unsolved,
and in many cases uninvestigated, sexual assaults and murders of forty-five
San Diego women between 1985-1992. The project takes its name from a term
used by police for what they describe as "...'misdemeanor murders' of biker
women and hookers... Sometimes we'd call them "NHI's - no humans involved."
By using the phrase "NHI" as the title of their project, the artists shaped
the language and focus around which the story of the unsolved murders and
police investigations would be publicly discussed, widely debated and contested.
This is just one of the techniques the artists used in this 5 part project.
Our presentation will feature videos documenting this project and excerpts
from the installation.
Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper 4 min
A collaboration
between filmmaker Sarah Jane Lapp and contrabassist Mark
Dresser,
this film chronicles the day in the life of an asthmatic stripper whose
every
inhalation is both inhalation and occupation. The film, composed of 1500
ink,
wax
and gouache drawings, initially toured internationally with the Mark Dresser
Trio
with a live performance of the original score by Dresser. Venues have
included
the Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, New Langton Center for
Art/San
Francisco, Webster Film Series/St. Louis, Tonic/New York, See the Sound
Music
Festivals/Netherlands, and many others. The film will screen at the Ann
Arbor
Film Festival in March 2003 (ostensibly beginning its festival circuit).
***************************
KISSY
SUZUKI SUCK 20 min
"Can
women subvert violent sexual imagery whihc is often used in a
flippant
or gratuitous way, in order to expose the real pain of sexual
violence?
So askes Alison Murray, director of a bold new video assaulting
issues
of pronography and sexual stereotypes. How does she do it and does
it
work? Heavily influenced by American sleaze and the Queen of Blonde,
Madonna,
we have two women with shoulder-length blonde hair in white trash
punkslut
gear sitting in a car, telling tales about their johns. It is
night,
of course, the textures are grainy but vibrant and the camerawork
hypnotic.
Repetions work to distance the pleasure of voyeurism and
interrogate
the 'trutth' of their experiences. As if the words cannot
contain
thier energy, sexiness frustrations, they begin to swing madly in
and
out of the doors of the car, then ride the bonnet and dive through the
windows
in a frenzy of physical theatre. It's raunchy and femme and
exhilarating.
When thry cuss each other out, then snog, the unexepcted
queerness
of the text which has tickled beneath the surface , blooms
deliciously.
From kisses to knives to the gory invocation of abuse, the
ultimate
resilience of the women struggles through. It works. And how. "
-
Cherry Smyth, City Limits London May 1992.