UPDATES: Sex Work at New Museum
SW-led projects present at NewINC's DEMO festival 2 years in a row
Welcome to a long-overdue update. Much has happened since Decoding Stigma took you along our project development journey for Browser Histories early last year. Here’s part one and part two if you need a refresher. While I could fill this intro with a whole lot of “where the f*ck has Decoding Stigma been” throat-clearing, I’ll leave that for a future post and cut right to the highlights.
We launched Browser Histories!
Decoding Stigma presents what happens when you give money to SW-led interactive media projects
Browser Histories is a collective memory space stewarded by sex workers containing a repository of digital keepsakes created through communal dreaming. The core of the project was a community-building initiative dedicated to celebrating sex worker innovations in tech. Decoding Stigma’s long-term goal has always been to create a sex worker-led imaginarium focused on experimentation and play. Building Browser Histories gave us the opportunity to do exactly that, while showing what it would look like to have sex workers paid to participate at every level of a digital media project—as consultants, collaborators, and creators.
We were afforded the opportunity to do just that, thanks to the C/Change R&D Lab, created by Gray Area & Goethe-Institut SF. You can read a final project report here.
We wanted to honor a time when technology still felt magical rather than terrifying, and how that sense of magic contributed to the emergence of a shared liberation previously unknown to sex working communities. I am eternally grateful for all those who supported this endeavor.1 It is evidence that, sometimes, we actually can build the previously thought-to-be-impossible worlds we need, even if just for a sliver of time.
Sex Worker Voices at the The New Museum!
NewINC supports SW-led projects two years in a row: Decoding Stigma in 2022-’23 and Aorta Films 2023-’24
In June 2023 (omfg), Livia Foldes and I were honored to present the culmination of our work together for three and a half years as Decoding Stigma co-founders. This was thanks to our invitation to be part of The New Museum’s NewINC Y9 member cohort, as part of the Future Memory track led by the incredible Kameelah Janan Rasheed. We spent our year at NewINC building Browser Histories, with exceptional mentorship provided by the incubator and unparalleled feedback from our Future Memory peers.
This marked the first time that a sex work project presented as part of NewINC’s DEMO festival. Decoding Stigma’s mission calls for the inclusion of sex worker voices in all spaces designing the future, and The New Museum answered this very call by supporting our endeavors.
The Future Memory track was invited to present for the Flash Everything opening party for DEMO2023 at CARA, and our participation was a critical experience. We created a space where people could anonymously respond to intimate questions about their digitally-mediated erotic experiences. We collaborated with Qualiatik—technologist/theoretical neuroscientist/musician/tattoo artist— to create the Browser Histories logo of our dreams, which I am still determined to turn into merch some day. We coupled this collaboration with Pleasure Ceremony—queer and kinky spiritual healer/herbalist/somatic practitioner/sex coach—who designed a tea blend and meditation to guide visitors toward the safe space of recalling their most intimate interactions with technology.
This was the first time we exhibited physical work, and it forced me to confront the fact that talking about the vulnerable body without being a vulnerable body was causing me to cyclically burn out. Stay tuned for the rest of this tangent in a future letter.
What truly matters is that the NewINC team chose discomfort2 with awareness of the judgemental public. They have also chosen to stand their ground…
This past June Mahx Capacity presented indie queer porn studio AORTA Films at the DEMO2024 Festival, as part of NewINC’s Y10 Cooperative Studies track. The internationally award-winning studio champions “a future of ethical fuckery,” and is proudly Powerfully Obscene, believing “pornography’s potential as a liberatory space of exploration and autonomy.” Mahx Capacity delivered a fool-proof pitch to angel investors, sex workers, and community who want to support this endeavor, noting that AORTA Films has already proven 8 years of steady growth in profit and audience with exponential future potential. Capacity spent their first year at NewINC exploring cooperative governance models that will shape AORTA into a studio that includes the breadth of its community as power-holders and decision-makers.
It was an honor to watch Mahx bring their community’s incredible artwork to DEMO2024, which proved that porn can absolutely exhibit publicly without anyone getting their panties in a twist, besides perhaps the stunningly creative performers. Kudos to The New Museum for recognizing the power of pornography as a transformative medium that can pave a path toward liberation.
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for reading, there is much more to come.
xo, Gabriella
Browser Histories was spearheaded by Decoding Stigma partners Gabriella Garcia and Livia Foldes, in partnership with OnlyBans creator Lena Chen. This first prototype release was designed in collaboration with a compensated cohort of sex workers and our accomplices, including: JP (aka Themme @themmeheals), Chibundo Egwuatu, Mooniefangs, Ayanna Dozier, Maggie Oates, and more. Please visit About Browser Histories for the full list of those we could not do this without.
Overwhelming gratitude to the NewINC team, which has truly gone to bat for us. Thank you Salome Asega, Raul Zbengheci, Paul John, Brian Policard, Gatch Gabrielle Gatchalian, and Osmanée Offré for all of your ambitious support.