The PhotoNOLA Show Advertisement Is Up

The Show advertisement is up on the PhotoNOLA site, they spelt my fake name wrong? It's Yaum, not Yuam! I chose to use a pseudonym with my photo work, my joy in photography is about creating the pics and meeting my subjects (learning about who they are) not about getting my real name on a wall. I am insignificant, the work (telling the stories of my subjects) is what matters who cares about the applause and name recognition crap, that means nothing. I am happy using the fake name but gosh you got to spell it right!, there is fake and then there is rongly spieltt phake!, everything else looks OK. I sent them the photo links for my website and blog, hopefully they can add that and correct the name errors soon. The show is still 3 months off so plenty of time to make the corrections. 

I would like to thank my New Orleans contact Thom for all the work he is doing, I will be doing a Q&A with him soon for the press release. There should be a short artist talk for the event probably on the Saturday the 14th of Decmember (details still to be finalized). I guess there is a bus taking viewers from show to show to hear the photogs talk about their work, I hope to jump on that bus and listen to a few myself.

Anyway here is the online advert:

ZEITGEIST

Gerry Yuam – Bee 28 Ladyboy Sex Worker, Thailand 2012

Body Sellers: The Sex Workers Of Thailand
Photographs by Gerry Yuam

December 1 – 31, 3013

Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center

1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.

New Orleans, LA 70113

Hours vary

Zeitgeist presents the work of Canadian photographer Gerry Yuam for PhotoNOLA 2013. The subjects from Body Sellers: The Sex Workers Of Thailand were documented with an 8×10 view camera in multiple locations throughout Pattaya, Thailand over a five year period.

Statement:
“When I go boomsing (sex) with farang (Westerner) I smile outside and 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 sex workers of Thailand as well as to raise awareness in the viewer. I wanted to personalize the nameless sex workers everyone hears about but no one knows. 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, 2009 and 2012. Pattaya is a city three 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 sex tourists of Pattaya are predominantly male, both straight and gay, from countries around the globe. Different areas of Pattaya are devoted to various types of foreign tourists; Western customers, Middle Eastern customers, Asian customers, gay customers: all have regions in the city that cater to their specific desires.

The people in these photographs work in a variety of venues such as gogo dance bars, outdoor beer bars, as street freelancers, and as short-time bar workers. The sex workers of Thailand can make ten to twenty times in one week what an average Thai worker can make in one month. This makes the lure of Pattaya very strong for a young woman or man in rural Thailand. Often the money earned from the foreign customers is sent back up-country to the worker’s homes to help support their children, parents and sometimes entire families. – Gerry Yuam

Link to the advertisment:

http://photonola.org/event/zeitgeist-multi-disciplinary-arts-center/

Link to other PhotoNOLA photo festival shows:

http://photonola.org/exhibitions/

Update* The spelling mistake and my website were added quickly, thanks folks for your fast work.