Existence is Resistance: Sex Workers and Sex Trafficking Survivors on Violence
Existence is resistance is a key principle in social justice work, which states that among other things, healing is a critical component to reclaiming space once dominated by the oppressor. This exhibition is inspired by the curator Laura LeMoon’s work to unfurl violence against people in the sex trade through her photography series around the issue of the Seattle area Green River killings, which has already shown in NYC, London, and Tokyo and is soon to show in San Francisco, Athens, Greece and Amsterdam. Existence is Resistance is a group show of an amalgamation of sex worker and survivor artists that brings space and healing to these communities from the complex ways violence is inflicted upon people in the sex trade; from the macular level of systemic oppression and police violence to the individual level. Existence is Resistance brings the viewer to think about life and death and how institutional and individual violence impact the stories of sex workers and survivors. Examples of photographers past and present who have engaged in similar aims for their communities include HIV/AIDS activists and artists David Wojnarowicz and Peter Hujar, as well as punk community photographer Nan Goldin. Please mark your calendars and come join us at our opening celebration, Thursday April 3rd from 5-8pm at Gallery Erato in Seattle.
The Existence is Resistance exhibition will be on display and available for sale at Gallery Erato through May 9th. Open hours are every Thursday noon-6pm. Private views are available by appointment.
Meet the Curator and Artist
Laura LeMoon
Laura LeMoon is a visual artist and writer, as well as a former sex worker and sex trafficking survivor. Her art has been seen in Tokyo, London, NYC, L.A., and will soon be seen in Athens, Greece and Melbourne, Australia later in 2025. She was recently awarded the prestigious International Prize Leonardo da Vinci 2025 from Effetto Arte Fondazione in Italy. Her writing on sex worker issues has appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, Seattle Times, The Stranger, Salon, South Seattle Emerald, Bitch Magazine, Insider, and more. She has collaborated as policy advisor on sex work with numerous national and international entities such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, United States Department of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, United Nations Human Rights Committee, United Nations Human Rights Council, White House Domestic Policy Council, and City of Seattle.
Exhibition Statement
Laura LeMoon is a writer, artist, sex worker activist, and sex trafficking survivor who is very passionate about writing on issues of social justice and promoting social justice through her writing. She has written on her personal experiences being a sex worker and sex trafficking survivor for publications like The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, Salon, The Daily Beast, Insider, The Independent, Pulp Mag, Button Eye Review, Brevity, For Women Who Roar, The Rumpus, Seattle Times, Glass Poetry, Bitch Magazine, VICE, Drunk Monkeys, The Establishment, and more. She has also served as peer policy advisor and technical writer with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime advocating for better international HIV/AIDS policies, and has worked as a peer policy advisor on issues related to sex work and sex trafficking to the CDC, USDOJ, UNAIDS, and City of Seattle. In October 2023, she traveled to Geneva, Switzerland to testify before the United Nations Human Rights Committee against the human rights abuses of sex workers by the U.S. government. In September 2024, she testified before the Biden administration cabinet on the U.S.’s human rights abuses against people in the sex trade.
Her art has been seen in Tokyo, London, NYC, L.A., and will soon be seen in Athens, Greece and Melbourne, Australia later in 2025. She was recently awarded the prestigious International Prize Leonardo da Vinci 2025 from Effetto Arte Fondazione in Italy.
As a survivor of childhood abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, physical assault, and sex trafficking, I have a lot of anger around not being seen; around people choosing to turn a blind eye so they aren’t faced with difficult and uncomfortable decisions. I suppose I am a stereotype. I am an angry feminist bitch. But I have every right to be. And this kind of divine rage, this rage I refuse to deny anymore, is what drives my writing. I have a deep passion for social justice work and pursuing justice, wherever I can, as much as I can, is the reason I am here and the reason I am a writer. I believe people only change themselves when they are made uncomfortable, when they are pushed. Courage or comfort. Choose. Being a sex worker activist, writer, and artist under my legal name, which is Laura LeMoon, has meant I have made myself a mark.I can’t get a job, I can’t get a partner, people don’t want to be friends with me, I’m a target of the criminal legal system, landlords don’t want to rent to me, etc.
What I’m trying to say is my style of confessional, combative, bone-crushingly honest art pushes people on purpose, and it’s frankly because I hate being here. I hate not having financial stability, I hate not knowing if I’ll be homeless again next month, or if I’ll have to risk my life with a trick who will decide to murder me because I needed money to keep my phone on despite the fact that Verizon already has a zillion dollars. My art is really begging readers to change themselves, their attitudes and beliefs, so that me and people like me can have a chance at survival. Because we’re tired of getting raped by tricks and not being able to report it because WE are the criminals, tired of seeing our community members murdered and have no one care. We are tired of invisibility and apathy.
Making art is the only time I feel hope that things could change, so I stay there. Everywhere around me is death, murder, rape, silence, abuse, misuse of power…but when I write, when I confess to the page and to readers, I feel like I’m doing something. And even if our circumstances don’t change for ten, twenty, a hundred years – my voice out there on the internet or in some dusty library book makes me hopeful that one day my words will find the right person. I write so I can live, so I can not blow my head off, because most of the time it’s that bleak. Hopefully my writing changes at least one person because sex workers deserve a better world where people have the guts to SEE us.
Artists and Artistic Statements
Amy Bleu
Amy Bleu is a gender fluid lesbian ex-model, currently working as a social worker, writer and musician in Portland, Ore. She uses she and he pronouns. Although his stories and poems he’s written, as well as photographs he has posed for, have been featured in magazines such as BUST, The Bitchin’ Kirsch, and NW Woman Magazine, he has not had any of his sketches or paintings published anywhere yet. Her paintings have shown in galleries at Borders Bookstore in Spokane, her hometown, as well as Mississippi Pizza Pub in Portland. This is the first exhibit to feature some of his drawings.
Artist statement
Amy Bleu is a former fetish, pinup and nude model who now works in social services in addition to being an artist. Whether using a pencil, paintbrush, guitar, microphone, or typewriter, Amy explores sexuality, gender, and surviving trauma and aims to connect with other survivors through these mediums. This particular project was created as he drew upon memories, reflected on photographs he’s posed for, and contemplated what he enjoys in his personal life, what he’s done compulsively and didn’t feel as excited about, and where the two overlap.
Selina Berlin
Selina Berlin (she/her) is 35 and was raised in Renton Highlands and works primarily with watercolors on paper and enjoys utilizing masking gum.
Selina Berlin enjoys the lack of control with watercolors vs acrylic and loves being surprised by every piece. Her work can be divided into two main categories. One, lots of landscapes: inspired by the Pacific Northwest’s mountains, water features, and sheer greenness. And abstract art that can be simply exploring the play of colors or a way for expressing feelings without words. As a queer sex worker she finds art a powerful way to process Big Feelings without being so analytical. Existence is Resistance is Selina’s first public art show and she’s ecstatic to be showing at Gallery Erato.
Jelena Vermilion
Stop The War, 2023
This work honours the spirit of Carol Leigh, represented as a butterfly—a symbol of transformation, rebirth, and the soul’s journey beyond death. Moving through the ether, she carries the brilliance she embodied in life, radiating the kindness, generosity, and unwavering advocacy that defined her. The composition incorporates cut-outs from the memorial cards distributed at her celebration of life, grounding the piece in both personal and collective remembrance. The Supreme has passed. Vivid colors reflect the depth of her impact as a friend, mentor, and fierce champion for sex workers’ rights. Like a phoenix, she rose again and again, inspiring Vermilion to continue the fight for dignity with the same unyielding fire.
We Are Ungovernable, 2023
This work is a bold declaration of autonomy, honoring the resilience, wisdom, and unwavering tenacity of sex workers. At its center, the “heart of gold” reclaims the well-worn adage, asserting both strength and compassion in the face of stigma. The figure, balancing precariously on one leg, highlights the instability imposed by economic precarity—held aloft only by the almighty dollar—while simultaneously breastfeeding her children, a testament to survival and care. Inscribed across her body, the phrase “my tits feed my family” is a raw assertion of labour, necessity, and empowerment. Purple hues reference the military Purple Heart, recognizing the bravery required to navigate this existence, while the red lantern in the lower right evokes the enduring symbol of the red-light district. Through layered symbolism and striking contrasts, this piece challenges perceptions, demanding visibility and respect for those who persist against the weight of systemic and gendered oppression.
Carol Leigh Made Me Feel Worthy, 2023
This piece is Vermilion’s tribute to the life and legacy of Carol Leigh. This honours not only her public advocacy but also the personal impact she had on those who knew her. The colour purple, evoking both the military Purple Heart for bravery and the long-standing associations with dignity and resistance, reflects the strength she instilled in Vermilion. Carol was more than a mentor—she was a friend who helped Vermilion see her own worth. Through her wisdom, humour, and relentless advocacy, she showed Vermilion that her voice mattered, that her experiences were valid, and that she deserved to stand in her power without shame. Just as Carol reshaped language to affirm the agency of sex workers, she reshaped how Vermilion saw herself. Through her presence, Vermilion learned to hold her head higher. This piece is both a remembrance and a love letter to the radical, unwavering care that defined Carol’s life and legacy.
Ayellet Ben Ner
My journey through the sex industry left many impressions and experiences. Some got to be revised by research, writing and art. My published works include “Image of the absent” a textual visual exploration (printed 2014) of infatuation story between an israeli sex worker and notorious Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann; “May there be evidence for my life at my disposal”, a co-contribution to the ‘Sex Work Now’ research anthology published by NYU press (2024). These days I split my time between research, raising kids, activism for sex workers and developing my first poetry book and also between Israel and Canada. I have a degree in visual arts, won some prizes and grants and like combining traditional techniques like printing and ink on paper with collage making and Zines aesthetics.
In this body of work, I explore the duality between what exists on the surface and what lies underground in the world of sex work. My pieces investigate the tension between the carefully constructed personas—represented by the text: stage names or working names, good wishes and simple desires that sex workers choose to embody, confronting permanent, intimate markings that resemble tattoos beneath these facades. Drawing inspiration from sailors’ tattoo culture I create collages and ink works that navigate between traditional thinking and anarchy.
The stage name represents a conscious curation of self—a professional armor and creative expression that simultaneously reveals and conceals. In contrast, the tattoo-like imagery in my work symbolizes what remains indelible: experiences, trauma, resilience, and truth that cannot be renamed or rebranded.
As someone who has both worked in the sex industry and researched it academically, I position myself at the intersection of lived experience and critical analysis. My artwork does not offer simple narratives of victimhood or empowerment, but rather creates a visual language for the complex negotiations of identity, agency, and representation that define sex workers’ experiences across diverse contexts.
Harlen Munsö
Harlen Munsö is a captivating force in the contemporary art scene, whose diverse range of
mediums—collage, drawing, installation, persona, poetry, and performance—invites us to
explore the intersections of identity, culture, and emotion. Based in Seattle, Munsö’s work
resonates deeply with themes of queerness and self-expression, challenging traditional
narratives and inviting viewers into a rich, multifaceted dialogue.
His influence extends beyond his own artistic practice; through impactful initiatives like the
globally touring film evening “Homoccult & Other Esoterotica” which premiered at MIXNYC in
2007, Munsö has carved out spaces for marginalized voices in the arts. The curatorial projects
he has spearheaded, such as “Gloria Hole” at The Fireplace Project in 2011, and the pivotal
“Ideal Pole” at Ramiken Crucible in 2012, reflect his commitment to pushing the boundaries of
contemporary art. Each event not only showcases innovative talent but also serves as a catalyst
for conversations around identity and representation in art.
Munsö’s work has garnered recognition in platforms like Starrfucker magazine, further solidifying
his role as a key player in the dialogue surrounding queer art. His residency for Instinct #5 in
Berlin, focusing on “Self Destruction Poetry,” highlights his ongoing exploration of the
complexities of the self, inviting audiences to confront their own narratives through the lens of
vulnerability and resilience.
Engaging with Harlen Munsö’s art is an invitation to reflect on our own identities while
embracing the rich tapestry of experiences that shape our world. His commitment to fostering
dialogue through artistic expression not only enriches the contemporary art landscape but also
inspires us all to celebrate the beauty of diversity and the power of storytelling. Whether through
his thought-provoking installations or evocative performances, Munsö challenges us to engage,
reflect, and connect in new and meaningful ways.