Petra Bauer and SCOT-PEP, Workers!

Text: Frances Stacey, Producer

Workers! is a new film co-authored by Petra Bauer and SCOT-PEP, a sex-worker led organization in Scotland. It was made in the Scottish Trade Union Congress, a building rooted in workers’ struggles for rights and political representation. During their one day occupation of this institution, conversations unfold that centre the voices of sex workers demanding to be seen as experts on their own work and lives. The film is a result of a long-term collaboration initiated by Collective and structured around a series of workshops held regularly over three years. We sought to create an open, social space – getting to know each other, eating together, sharing texts and ideas, testing different representational strategies in film, discussing the complex discourses around sex-work politics, our varied experiences of work and sex work, and the challenges faced by SCOT-PEP members, who as a collective are actively trying to change the labour conditions and rights of sex workers in Scotland. As a Producer I am committed to the reproductive work, caring and hosting involved in generating the resources and conditions needed to work collectively. Through this framework we aimed to find common references and build relationships based on trust, initially without knowing it would be possible to make a film together.

The co-authored approach to Workers! is inspired by feminist film practitioners who emphasize the importance of making films with their subjects, not about them. Two films are particularly important to how the project has been conceived of and made: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Les Prostituées de Lyon Parlent– these historic films are folded into a new document that speaks of present day conditions under capitalism. In 1975, the now well-known feminist filmmaker Chantal Akerman made the film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles depicting the daily routine of a housewife over three days. As a character, Jeanne embodies at least three different roles: that of housewife, mother and sex worker. Long takes in real-time centre the rhythms of these different forms of labour; Jeanne peels potatoes, makes the bed, wakes up her son, andbuttons her shirt after meeting a client. That same year, in the summer of 1975, the Les Prostituées de Lyon Parlent was made during the occupation of Saint-Nizier church in Lyon by two hundred prostitutes, denouncing police harassment and perilous labour conditions. Documented by Carole Roussopoulous and collective Vidéo Out from inside the church, this occupation led to an eight-day nationwide strike. The medium of video was used to create a collective portrait of the women and to broadcast their demands directly onto the street outside the church, enabling them to speak in public space without fear of arrest. This marks a key moment in the sex worker rights movement that was formative to the inauguration of many of the first sex worker led organizations in Europe.

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Frances Stacey
Frances is a curator and producer based in Edinburgh. Her work draws on expanded approaches to curatorial practice, often involving open-ended research and collaboration with others. Since 2013 she has been Producer at Collective, Edinburgh, where she closely supports artists and groups to make new work, film, exhibitions, events, summer schools and off-site programs. In this role she has recently produced the research project and film Workers! by Petra Bauer and the sex worker rights organization SCOT-PEP. She is a coordinator of the reading group on Social Reproduction: in art, life and struggle, co-founder of artist-run organization Rhubaba and is a board member of SCOT-PEP.

Petra Bauer
Petra works as an artist and filmmaker. She is concerned with the question of film as a political practice, and sees it as a space where social and political negotiations can take place. Recent exhibitions include: Soon Enough: art in action, Tensta Konsthall (2018); Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, Riga Biennial (2018): Show Me Your Archive and I Will Tell You Who is in Power, KIOSK, Ghent (2017); Women in Struggles, on tour to different Folkets Hus (People’s Houses) in Sweden (2016–17); A Story within a Story, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (2015); and All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Petra is an initiator of the feminist platform k.ö.k (Kvinnor könskar kollektivitet – Women Desire Collectivity).

SCOT-PEP
SCOT-PEP is a sex worker-led charity that advocates for the safety, rights and health of everyone who sells sex in Scotland. They believe that sex work is work, and that sex workers deserve protections such as labour rights. Along with Amnesty International, the World Health Organization and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, they believe that the decriminalization of sex work best upholds the safety and rights of people who sell sex.