International Sex Worker Rights Week Philadelphia
March 3 - 8, 2024 located at Blah Blah Gallery, 319 N. 11th St. Unit 2A, Project SAFE presents a week long multi-media art installation with nightly events, bringing to light the stories of people living within the intersections of houselessness, drug use, and sex work in Philly.
The installation - Not Welcome Anywhere - immerses audiences in narratives featured in SAFE's Diversion Report: a peer-to-peer study on the exclusion from and inaccessibility of legal, medical, and social services for people who trade sex and use drugs in Philadelphia.RSVP below or at this link!
Accessibility Information: Venue capacity is 20-30 people. Masks will be available and all attendees will be asked to wear them. The space is not ADA accessible; there is a curb at the building entrance, and four steps prior to reaching the elevator. There is a railing alongside the steps. The gallery is located on the second floor accessed via elevator. There are two, non-gendered bathrooms. The project includes visual, auditory, and tactile elements; for any additional accessibility questions or requests, please contact us.Content Considerations: Not Welcome Anywhere features narratives and visual depictions of subject matter that include or are the result of physical, psychological, sexual, and systemic/state sanctioned violence- including incarceration and death by assault and overdose.
Event Schedule
Installation open daily 6-9PM, with free, nightly events at 7PM:
Sunday, March 3rd - International Sex Workers' Rights Day
Join us for our exhibition opening featuring interactive activities facilitated by Nightshade, a local collective for people who trade sex and use drugs.
Monday, March 4th
Live screen printing with Bee Daddy: get your very own favorite pieces of clothing printed with pro-sex work themed designs right in front of your eyes! Limited textiles will be available, so BYOC (bring your own clothes).
Tuesday, March 5th
This evening will feature a guided grief ritual to collectively be witnessed in our grief and to grieve those we have lost to the War on Drugs and the resulting overdose epidemic.
Wednesday, March 6th
Join Project SAFE members for a roundtable conversation discussing the findings of the Not Welcome Anywhere Diversion Report, based on community-led surveys that were designed and carried out by sex workers and drug users, for the benefit of sex workers and drug users. In the spirit of “nothing about us, without us,” the information we will be sharing is our response to policy issues impacting our communities where our voices are often not heard.
Thursday, March 7th
Movie Night! Enjoy a community screening of Kokomo City, a 2023 American documentary film, directed, produced, and edited by D. Smith. It explores the lives of four Black, Trans women and their experiences as sex workers in New York and Georgia through interviews and re-enactments with actors. Devastatingly, on April 2023, on the eve of the film's debut at Atlanta Film Festival, Koko Da Doll, one of the workers depicted prominently throughout the film, was shot and killed at the age of 35.
Friday, March 8th - International Women's Day
Join us for our exhibition closing featuring interactive activities facilitated by Nightshade, a local collective for people who trade sex and use drugs.
Not Welcome Anywhere: Exclusion From and Inaccessibility of Legal, Medical, and Social Services for People Who Trade Sex and Use Drugs
Read the entire diversion report below:
Audio Narratives from Not Welcome Anywhere
coming soon!
The artists and collaborators of Not Welcome Anywhere
Project SAFE
Project SAFE, a harm reduction collective, has been supporting women and queer people who use drugs and trade sex since 2004. Run by and for people who use drugs and trade sex, the collective is dedicated to promoting the health and wellness of people who use drugs and trade sex, to preserving longstanding traditions of drug use and sex work, and recognizing both as integral elements of human experience.Project SAFE conducted the diversion study and subsequent report that the NWA installation brings to life. You can read the full report here.
Contributors to this study and report include: Jen Bowles, Kelly Underman, Penelope Saunders, Aisha Mohammed, Raani Begum, Gus Grannan, Catalyst G, LaDonna Smith, Mia Action, Goldie, Frida Clark, Kahn Miller, Shaylyn Steinhardt, and Sanjna.
Susan DiPronio
Susan DiPronio, (they, A) are a queer Art for Social Change artist and a recipient of The Transformation Award and The Art for Change Grant from the Leeway Foundation for conducting writing workshops for almost 20 years with women, the houseless, adults and children who are HIV positive and the underserved. They founded “Pink Hanger Presents” to give voice to their stories. An award winning analog photographer, their plays, short films and poetry films have appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and venues in New York City, Boston, Baltimore and internationally.
Their book “Out Loud,” a culmination of a memoir workshop they facilitated in 2023 with LGBTQIA+ Elders, is now in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute and is available for sale. www.susandipronio.com
Mae West
Mae West (he/they) is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, producer, educator, and advocate based in Lenapehoking (Philadelphia, PA). Mae has devised and performed numerous acclaimed, genre-blending theatrical works, including $7 Girl, which explores their experiences of sex work through innovative aerial dance, improvisation, and storytelling. They Co-Founded Cannonball Festival in 2021, through which they have produced over 1,000 performances of 300+ independent shows spanning all disciplines of live performance in Philadelphia. Mae is also a member of Project SAFE; as a queer/trans sex worker himself, he is devoted to expanding people’s capacity for pleasure through a lens of “Radical Permission” and abolitionist BDSM practices. You can keep up with Mae's work on Instagram @maeartist_.
Lore
Lore (they/she) is a private-practiced bodyworker of 17 years engaging with all forms of in-person sex work since they were a teenager and have experienced short bouts of houselessness. They intertwine their support of community well being and mutual aid through harm reduction as a member of Project SAFE advocating for decriminalizing sex work and substance use, and by offering free and reparations work of massage and photography to marginalized demographics. Fueled by empathy and personal experience with federal incarceration, she is a prison abolitionist. Based in North Philadelphia. Find her at brewerytownmassage.com and on Instagram @we.love.lore.