"Human Voices" Opened up today at the VAAA gallery here in Edmonton, Canada. I had 11 20x24 images from the sex worker white background series in the show. Here is the layout of the pics along with my "Artist Statement"
Human Voices
When I go boomsing (sex) with farang (westerner), I smile outside cry
inside”
Long 25, gogo bar worker, Pattaya
Thailand 2007
I feel that photography can be a powerful voice
for change; it can help the forgotten people in our society. My dual hope in
creating these photographs was to document the workers as well as to raise
awareness in the viewer. I wanted to personalize the nameless sex workers
everyone hears about but does not know. My goal was to humanize the statistics,
to give a voice to the worker.
The set of portraits in this exhibition were made in Pattaya
Thailand in 2007 and 2009. Pattaya is a city 3 hours south of Bangkok and has a
population of 100 000, it is world famous as a destination for foreign sex
tourists and sex pats (long term foreign sex tourist residents).
The workers in the photographs work a variety of venues, gogo
dance bars, outdoor beer bars, freelance street workers and short time room workers.
The sex workers of Thailand can make 10 to 20 times in one week what the
average blue collar Thai worker can make in 1 month, this makes the lure of
Pattaya very strong for a young girl or man in rural Thailand. Often money made
with the foreign customers is sent back up country to the workers home to help
support children and sometimes entire families.
The sex tourists of Pattaya are
predominantly male both straight and gay, from countries around the globe.
Different areas of Pattaya city are devoted to a various types of foreign sex
tourists, western customers, Arab customers, Asian customers, gay customers all
have regions in the city that cater to their specific requirements.
