The Center for Artistic Activism. How did your story begin as an artistic activist? While studying communication design at Design Academy Eindhoven I was encouraged to create art around my own interests, so I often did projects which tied in with activist and feminist themes.
Having danced in strip clubs I wanted to challenge the stigma held against people in the sex industry. For my graduation project I made a short film that focused on the practical work aspects of the window brothels in Amsterdam.
One of the most important things I learned is not to overthink too much, things do not have to be fully planned out in order to have impact. During the workshop we had two days to plan and execute an action. We organised an auction which ended up being more like a party and managed to draw more people and money than we did though the online campaign.
And we actually had fun doing it. If the results lead to something new, if it puts me in contact with people that I can collaborate with, and learn something from. What advice would you give someone who has been a traditional artist or activist who wants to get into artistic activism? So much of activism uses creative ways to reach people. People still find ways, however small, of resisting oppression, and use their creativity when doing so.
Together with Emy Fem a sex worker activist and performance artist I met during the C4AA workshop I am working on a zine where we are collecting personal texts and photos made by sex workers. Last year we held a set of creative workshops for sex workers, and a short film created by one of the participants will be show this October at the Porn Film Festival in Berlin and we want to release the zine in conjunction with that. After that we would love to collect more material which could be made into a book.
