Exhibition
Decriminalised Futures

Full decriminalisation of sex work is the rallying cry that unites the sex worker rights movement across the world. Under this banner, sex workers and their allies have fought tirelessly for strong workers’ rights, an end to exploitation, an end to criminalisation, and real measures to address poverty. Decriminalised Futures is a celebration of this movement.
This exhibition is a testament to what can be created when we use this movement as our inspiration; when we take politicised sex worker organising as our starting point.
– Elio Sea and Yves Sanglante, co-curators

Decriminalised Futures is a group exhibition featuring thirteen international artists whose work speaks to the multiplicity of contemporary sex worker experiences.

The exhibition highlights the history of the sex worker rights movement and its inextricable links to issues of racial and social justice, migrant rights, labour rights, anti-austerity work, and queer and trans liberation.

The works in the exhibition – comprising ten distinct projects from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States – include moving image, embroidery, linocut prints, bookmaking, writing, drawing, gaming and sculpture.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, themes of sacred space, mental health, gender, racial justice, joy, pain, disability, tenderness and desire become tools for solidarity and elicit conversations rooted in the imaginaries of a decriminalised future.

Decriminalised Futures features works from Tobi Adebajo, Khaleb Brooks, Chi Chi Castillo and May May Peltier, Cory Cocktail, Hanecdote, Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, Letizia Miro and Yarli Allison, Aisha Mirza, Annie Mok, pxr•mxt•r, and Danica Anna Uskert-Quinn.

Alongside the exhibition, the ICA will host a programme of events curated by Decriminalised Futures.

A chapbook containing documentation of the exhibited works alongside texts and quotes from the panel discussions at SWARM’s 2019 festival will be published alongside the exhibition.