An awareness campaign in collaboration with de Rode Draad (prostitutes' rights organisation) Midnight Walkers, City Sleepers, The Red Light District, Amsterdam, The Netherlands [1999]

Sticker to be placed on window (slogan is on the peel-off backing) / The No Pictures project featured in Blacklight, a magazine publishedd by the Rode Draad (The Red Thread)

In the context of ‘Midnight Walkers and City Sleepers’, an exhibition which commissioned artists to work in the Redlight district in Amsterdam, we were initially invited under very specific conditions to be a part of the debates surrounding the show.    However, we were conscious that it may be more appropriate to employ other strategies within this context. One of the things which is problematic with that area is that most of the time it is defined by its tourist industry, the sex industry, which is of course the most visible. We didn’t want to reiterate that very clichéd or    surface perception of the area and yet we didn’t want to evade the omnipresence of that industry. For this reason we decided to initiate a collaboration with The Red Thread (De Rode Draad), the prostitute union which occupies a significant position both physically and socially in the area. As three women, we were also intrigued by their operation as a prostitutes’ rights organisation and what that entails.

After our first discussion with The Red Thread a very practical need emerged. On the windows of the rooms in which the prostitutes stand there is usually a sticker reading “No Pictures”. The Red Thread has  become the distributor of these stickers and quite simply they had run    out. We discussed the possibility of a kind of message of solidarity among    women from The Red Thread and De Geuzen. But that is not an easy task because the union is not actually looked favourably upon by the proprietors  of the brothels. Our solution was to come up with a sticker with the no pictures icon, a simple image with the camera with a red slash through  it and the words NO PICTURES. But on the back we had silk-screened in florescent pink the text: OUR IMAGE IS OUR OWN. The slogan, normally the focus in politically oriented work, in this case is disposable. In order to use the sticker the slogan must be split apart and pealed off. The slogan becomes a moment in use, a temporary comment or thought, a way of incorporating a degree of fragility into a political situation.