Decriminalised Futures is a collaborative project using creative tools and popular education to explore sex worker lives, experiences and movement struggles.

Decriminalised Futures is designed by sex workers, and made for sex workers.

Mission statement || Background & History

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With love and thanks to: SWARM, Institute of Contemporary Art London, Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, Bertha Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Verso Books, Abolitionist Futures, Arika, Disrupt Foundation (+ private donations and support)

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This website was made by Rodrigo Nava Ramirez*. The design and function of this website is inspired by sci-fi police force aesthetics and judicial records archiving practices. It shapes and works as a systemic occupation as means to challenge these oppressive structures.

*Rodrigo Nava Ramirez (he/they) is an artist and computer programmer from Mexico City.

public lecture Three women with red body paint, one of them holds a large container of clear liquid and is pouring it onto the ground and onto the person next to them.

Sex Worker Art and Creative Practices

 public lecture four women sit at a conference desk, and one of them is speaking into a microphone.

Anti Trafficking in the Caribbean

 public lecture a black and white screen capture of a woman in a long dress, her arms reaching out and she is in mid dance. One ankle is visible.

Sex Workers Built the Internet

 exhibition A black and white lino print by Khaleb Brooks featuring a person sitting, one leg is up and one arm is draped over it. They are looking straight at the viewer.

Exhibition at ICA

 creative writing Artwork by Audrey Whorne, featuring a brown sex worker with green hair lying on a pink bed. A poster for the SWARM conference is on her wall and she is writing in a purple notebook. A bright red bra lies beside her, and the text reads: 'Writing Our Futures'.

Writing Our Futures

 public lecture A black and white image featuring fourteen people holdig up a banner for the sex worker organisation AMMAR.

Latin American Sex Worker Struggles

 public lecture a collage of different queer people including Martha P Johnson in front of a black and white photocopy of 'Daily News' headline. Above it is the text 'One from the vaults'.

Trans Sex Workers Through History

 public lecture A sepia toned image of a woman with her face in one hand wearing a white dress. Large fingers grasp her entire body. The word 'trader' is above her.

A History of Sex Work Criminalisation in the UK

 public panel a person of colour wearing a burgundy turban is set against a textured white background, smiling into the camera. They are wearing glasses, hoop earrings and an orange top.

Imagining New Worlds

 public panel An old british passport cover with the numbers 2669 on it, and handwitten underneath 'Miss R.M. BELL'.

The Transmission Line: Empire and Abolition

 public panel A salmon pink background featuring the text 'How We Ran A Mutual Aid Fund: SWARM's COVID-19 Pandemic Response'.

Mutual Aid in the UK

 public panel A lithograph print on dark orange background featuring a building and the text 'SPK: Turn illness into a Weapon. Agitation prefaced by J-P. Sartre. To cas a stone into a commanding centre of capitalism is one thing, but to transfer a kidney stone into activity is the same. We ought to protect ourselves against kidney-stones!'

Abolition in The UK

 panel discussion A terrier-type dog leans their head on a round table, on top of a SWARM conference programme leaflet.

A Decriminalised Future

 panel discussion A person of colour speaks at a coference, a microphone up to their face. Behind them a white person with shoulder length blue hair looks at them.

Aesthetics vs Ethics: Expanding Definitions of Feminist Porn

 panel discussion A logo featuring an abstract body with heels and hands stickig out. The text says 'Objects of Desire'.

Artists Talk Bodies, Visibility, and Violence

 panel discussion Four protestors, some wearing lingerie and all wearing masks, hold a large purple banner that says 'HOOKERS AGAINST HARDSHIP' as three police officers walk past.

Cops Don't Keep Us Safe

 panel discussion A table featuring a black SWARM tote bag for sale.

Disability & Sex Work UK

 panel discussion A white person with long brown hair speaks at a conference, against a black fabric backdrop. They are gesturing with their hand and holds a microphone up to their face.

Examining Anti-trafficking Measures: Academic Perspectives

 panel discussion A poster for the Sex Work Strike March featuring two black figures with white hair punching fists agaimst a pink and red background. A strike of lightning is behind them. A watermelon and red umbrella feature at the bottom left and right of the poster.

Imagining Feminist Futures

 panel discussion A group of people standing in and outside a building. The text above the door says 'South Lomdon Gay Community Centre'.

Radical Histories: Exploring the Archives

 panel discussion A person wearing a summer dress with thin straps holds a microphone and is gesturing with their hands as they sit in front of a desk.

Radical Transfeminist Activism

 panel discussion A person of colour holds a micrphone at a presentation. Two people are sitting behind them in front of a projection screen.

Researching Sex Work

 panel discussion A sign held up in front of a person's face that says 'I'D RATHER BE A HOOKER THAN WORK FOR THE HOME OFFICE'.

(Resisting) Systems of Violence

 panel discussion an illustration featuring a person of colour walking with their eyes averted. Behind them is a ripped passport, chains, handcuffs, barbed wire, police sirens and street sign that says 'STIGMA'.

Sex Work and Migration in Europe

 panel discussion People walking down a street at a protest, holding up a placard that says in pink, blue and white, 'SEX WORK IS WORK'.

Sex Workers of Colour Roundtable

 panel discussion An illustrated mindmap of notes featuring information about the Nordic Model, with the text 'Sex workers on the Nordic Model'. It features both France and Sweden and information about how the model has played out in each, alonside the years the law was adopted.

Sex Workers on the Nordic Model

 panel discussion Eight people stand in front of a large banner that says 'action for trans health'. They are all smiling.

Strength, Resilience, and Healthcare

 panel discussion A wall featuring placards and statements in various fonts and colours, imcljuding 'DECRIM NOW', 'CRIMINALIZATION KILLS', 'LET US LIVE', 'ACAB' and 'BLACK SEX WORKERS MATTER'.

Technology, Surveillance and the State

 panel discussion An faceless person at a protest wearing a yellow top and fishnets holds up a placard to the camera that says 'I'd rather be a HOOKER than work for the DWP'. Another sign is just off the edge of the image and says 'Landlords profit from prostitution $'.

The Future of Work

 panel discussion

The Impact of Austerity
Year: all 2022 2021 2020 2019
Type: all creative writing exhibition panel discussion public lecture public panel workshop
Series: all decriminalised futures exhibition lady of the night school swarm festival of resistance we can build a different world writing our futures
Subject(s): all abolition accountability advertising archives argentina art austerity borders british empire care class client criminalisation community care criminalisation decriminalisation disability domestic violence drug policy ethics feminism film gender gender based violence harm reduction health history hiv internet labour rights latin america lgbtq+ marxism mental health migration mutual aid nordic model oppression organising police police violence porn poverty prisons publication racism reading reproductive justice research rights security sesta fosta sexual violence state violence surveillance technology trafficking transfeminism trans health trans history transphobia uk vawg violence women work world building