HANDLE WITH CARE
tropen museum amsterdam, Dutch Embassies of Dakar, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonië
A project about forced prostitution and female trafficking. Together with one of the victims who escaped from her oppressors I made a 100m2 carpet consisting of red female clothing. In order to see the video installation of fellow artist Jimini Hignett one had to cross the carpet symbolizing the fact that western society steps on these women and neglects their suffering. The opening performance with three young adults who are instructed by a former victim is about the hope that future generations will treat these women with respect and questions the ethics around prostitution, because there is a relation between core citizenship and who gets protected as a sex-worker and who not.
In 2015 we were invited by the Dutch embassy in Dakar to install the work and to do a preventive project where we informed hundreds of women about the strategies of traffickers. In 2018 we are invited by the embassies in Albania, Yugoslavia and Macedonia to do the same.