KINK OUT: EPHEMERA - Working Girls: The Blade. A Conversation about Street Based Sex Work - MOCA Geffen
Thursday, September 28, 2023
6.30pm
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
152 N Central Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90012
Free with RSVP

Kink Out is a bi-coastal collective that unites people of diverse identities with lived experience in BDSM culture through art, activism, community organizing, and conversation. With KINK OUT: EPHEMERA, a month-long residency, the collective transforms MOCA’s WAREHOUSE into an active archive for those who live and love differently. Drawing on physical and oral histories the residency brings together The Carter/Johnson Library and Collection, a compilation of printed material which celebrates sexuality from the 1700’s to the present day, and a regular schedule of performances, panels, workshops, and community events, to explore the intersection between contemporary art, activism, and leather, kink, BDSM, and sex worker communities. 

In collaboration with SWOPLA, KINK OUT: EPHEMERA presents a panel discussion featuring survival sex workers addressing the realities of street work, best safety practices, and ways community members can show support and solidarity given the current political climate. The conversation is moderated by Ashley Madness.

KINK OUT: EPHEMERA is co-organized with kd diamond and Daphne aka EthicalDrvgs in collaboration with The Carter/Johnson Library and Collection.

KINK OUT: EPHEMERA contains sexually explicit content. Parents should use discretion.

Bios

SWOPLA - Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles. SWOPLA is a peer support organization, run by sex workers and for sex workers. Their mission is to pursue our human rights to bodily autonomy, racial and social justice, and mutual liberation through outreach, education, mutual aid and political advocacy.  

Since 2018, SWOPLA has connected to street based sex workers through monthly outreach strolls, where they distribute cash, condoms, and other harm reduction supplies and personal care items while offering connections to services, including bi-weekly sex worker peer support group, and community building events, such as a New Years Eve party to celebrate successful efforts to decriminalize “loitering with intent to commit prostitution” (SB 357), and a new sex worker parents’ day, “Munchkins”.

Kink Out brings intersecting communities together. An ever-evolving container, Kink Out is a performance platform, ritual space, screening room, art collaboration, panel discussion, BDSM club, rally, call to action, tattoo studio, art auction, and fundraiser for communities most affected by the injustice of censorship, criminalization, and demonization of their lives and livelihoods.

Daphne aka EthicalDrvgs is a multidisciplinary artist most known for visual art and immersive performance art experiences. Her performance work has centered around the endurance of the divine feminine form and often features different variations of live body modifications. Her work centers the necessity of decriminalization and the advocacy of sex workers, often using visuals to show the unseen moments of the lives of sexworkers, specifically working trans girls, in order to reveal the aspects of their lives that many don’t get to see unless involved intimately. You can catch Daphne performing throughout LA either at shows or as a DJ.

kd diamond is a local tattoo artist, illustrator, and community organizer. One of the founding members of the Kink Out collective, diamond primarily uses her tattooing and art as methods to connect and engage community and politic. She’s illustrated over a dozen books about sex, gender, and sexuality. diamond recently opened Commonground Studio, a queer tattoo shop in Cypress Park.

The Carter/Johnson Library and Collection is a collective history of the communities who have chosen to live and love differently and features over 15,000 books (both fiction and non-fiction), periodicals, posters and other art, newsletters, and ephemera documenting the history of SM/Leather/Kink from early drawings documenting human sexuality to the present day. As the only library of its kind, it is our responsibility to let these communities know that their history is rich and long. The Library is designed to let people see it, hold it, read it and know it.

Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.

Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs - Fall 2023

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