| SEX AND WORK / SEKSI JA
TYÖ |
An installation by TEEMU
MÄKI.
What is work?
What is whoredom? When and what work is
exploitation? What should one
be wiling to sell and buy – and what not?
Its core is an hour long video in
which prostitutes
I've interviewed tell about their work. The
installation also includes
photographs,
an essay, a poem, a drawing, a sculpture, another
video
and a lounge for thinking about and talking about
sex and work.
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LIST OF CONTENTS:
1.
Sex and
Work – an Essay
about Whoredom
(Teemu Mäki, 2007–2008)
2.
What Is
Whoredom? – Sex Workers Tell, parts 1
& 2: Annika's Interview &
Saara's Interview (video, 2008,
57min)
3.
Unabridged version of Annika's
Interview, as a photocopied text leaflet
for the audience to take.
4.
Unabridged version of Saara's
Interview, as a photocopied text leaflet
for the audience to take.
5.
Olli and
Hanna
of Pizzeria Mare Chiaro
(A photo of small-scale enterprisers /
workers, 2008)
6.
Office
Worker
and Strip-Tease Artist (A photo
of a worker and of an erotic
worker, 2006)
7.
Erotic Work (Two photos of
the strip-tease
artist
Pauliina, 2008.)
8.
Sex as Work (Three photos
of a Finnish sex
worker
at work, 2007)
9.
Whore
and Exploit (An old video
work of mine, 1995, 62 minutes, which
also dealt with sex and work.
Usually shown looped on a flat-panel
monitor, with two pairs of
headphones and two armchairs.
10.
Desperate
Disco
(A drawing of sex work in Africa,
16.5.2005)
11.
He ovat
katkeria, mutta juuri nyt heillä
on kaikki
(They Are Bitter, but Right Now They
Have Everything, a poem – in
Finnish – about sex work in Africa, 7
pages, from my poetry collection Kuolevainen
(Mortal,
WSOY 2008.)
12.
Kuka / Who
(A sculpture/collage, 2008.)
13.
A lounge
for thinking
and talking about sex and work.
14.
Thaimaalainen
(A
piece
of music, composed by Max Savikangas,
lyrics by Juha-Pekka Hotinen.
From the Badminton-Opera by Hotinen,
Savikangas and myself. Not shown
in gallery Peri 2008.)
15.
Kaliki,
a video work, 2006.
(Not shown in gallery Peri 2008.)
–
About 62
pages
of text is included, yet I believe
that the visual and other visceral
elements are at least as important as
the texts in this piece. However,
here on the web I do not show the
videos and do not publish the texts
of this work either – thus this
preview is quite one-sided.
–
This
installation is a work in progress.
The starting
point was a philosophical/political
article about prostitution that I
wrote for my next book of essays. I
wanted to juxtapose this text with
the experiences and opinions of
prostitutes themselves. In the
installation I present my theoretical
view – the essay – as pure text,
but allow the prostitute's view to
take various forms: the
interview-video, photos of a
prostitute at work and the detached
run-down of the video dialogue on
paper.
The upcoming versions of
the
installation will
hopefully be even more extensive. To the
interviews of Finnish
prostitutes I will interviews of
Estonian, Russian and German
sex-workers. I will also add more photos
of prostitutes, not just "at work" but
also at home, as subjects of
portrait photography or painting.
However, the work will remain
flexible and smaller
versions will still be available if
there is no room or need for the
bigger ones.
–
I'm the copyright holder
of all the
parts of
the installation, but many people have
helped me to make it, as the
list of credits reveals:
VIDEO – the
interviewed: Annika
&
Saara. Interviewer: Teemu.
Camerawork and sound: Ville
Hyvönen. Post-production of image
and
sound: Heikki Kotsalo. Editing: Heikki
Kotsalo & Teemu. Director:
Teemu Mäki. PHOTOS – Teemu. The
models: Arja, Hanna, Kati, Olli,
Pauliina and the anonymous. Assistant
photographers: Kenneth Bamberg,
Kimmo Koskela, Paula Lehto.
Post-production of the photos: Kalle
Kataila, Kenneth Bamberg, Teemu.
Printing of the photos: Jarkko Sopanen
/ Printlab (TAIK).
The first version of the work was
exhibited in the Kehaturg / Sex
Market exhibition in Tallinn Art Hall,
2007. The name of the work was
then What Is Whoredom? / Mitä
huoruus on?. Since then I've
modified and
continued the work and changed its
title. The 2. version's premiere was
a solo exhibition of mine in the Photo
Galleri Peri, Turku, Finland
(18.9.–12.10.2008, www.peri.fi). Elina
Bäckman, Minna Havukainen
and
Mirka Muukkonen helped me to put up that
show. Thanks.
–
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