| SEX AND WORK / SEKSI JA TYÖ
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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here on the web I do not show the videos and do not publish the texts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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