Bishopsgate Institute x Guildhall School: Impurity!
This event will take place in person.
Sexquisite presents: Impurity!
Inspired by real sex worker history from the Bishopsgate Institute archives, Sexquisite presents a cabaret show of multidisciplinary performances, with poetry, burlesque, dance, comedy, and more.
This show will explore sex work through the ages - specifically how sex workers have been treated by the police, the media, and society over the years, exploring how sex workers have always existed at the mercy of legislation and public opinion, and still do.
Practical information
- Tickets are £12/£6 and available in advance and on the door.
- Content warning: This event will include nudity and the depiction of sexual activity within the context of the performance.
The collections that inspired Impurity!
By Sexquisite
It's hard for marginalised people to have a voice that resonates, as the historical discourse that's most widely available to us is the one written by the very oppressive forces that have kept us marginalised.
The importance of these archives became particularly clear when we were all able to relate so fiercely to the voices of our sex worker predecessors. Those voices that were otherwise silenced by the dominant narratives of their time, informed by colonialism and patriarchy.
Despite this, a member of our collective highlighted that, as a black sex worker, they struggled to find archival evidence of those that came before. Glimpses still exist, but it made us question how much sex worker history is undocumented.
We were particularly inspired by the ECP documentation, a sex worker organisation working to increase the rights of sex workers. Without their groundwork, it’s likely that we (also a sex worker collective using art as activism) wouldn’t exist today. Reading their press releases, case studies and demands to the police, unfortunately highlighted that little has changed. Kerb crawling laws are the same as 40 years ago, underage sex workers are still being arrested, and single mothers are still being targeted and having their children taken away from them for the ways they make a living.
One thing that struck us from this was the fierce solidarity and community that sex workers share. This is from a place of necessity, because the world has excluded us, we have had to find solace and family in each other.
Even going back 70 years to the 1950s, reading first-hand accounts of a sex worker’s tricks of the trade, we realised little has changed at all! For example, explaining her method of asking for the money up-front without offending the fragile male ego of her clients (Streetwalker, 1959). With comical similarities about how we work now, we’re excited to devise a show that incorporates the humour, joy, and solidarity of working as a sex worker, as well as the precariousness of our job, and the violence and stigma that comes with the devastating impact that legislation and societal attitudes has on our work.
About Sexquisite
Sexquisite is a community arts company and artist collective, co-directed by Guildhall School alumni Maedb Joy. Sexquisite creates groundbreaking and stigma-defying work through cabaret, theatre, and workshops. Launched in 2019, they are committed to showcasing sex workers’ art and support the full decriminalisation of sex work.
Image caption - Creative Commons, credit June Mac. Sex workers demonstrate outside of a Parliamentary debate in London on the 4th July 2018, to protest discussions on criminalising the advertising of sex work on the internet, and to draw attention to their campaign to fully decriminalise sex work.
How we’re keeping you safe
August 2022 update: Keeping you safe and healthy is our number one priority.
If you test positive for Covid-19 or are asked to isolate and are not able to attend your class or pre-booked event, please contact the Bishopsgate Box Office for further information (enquiries@bishopsgate.org.uk). Please do not come to the Institute in person if you have symptoms or have tested positive.
Bishopsgate Institute has a thorough cleaning schedule in place and we clean the most populated areas more often. You will find hand-sanitising stations throughout the building as well as touch-free drinking fountains.
Find out more about how we’re keeping you safe.
Sign up to our newsletter
Be the first to learn about our latest events, courses, and collections
Need to Know
Meet the Artists
Maedb Joy
Maedb Joy is a poet, theatre maker, actor and writer. She trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she graduated with First Class Honours and a nomination for the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund in the Devising category. Maedb is also the founder and co-artistic director of Sexquisite Events. Her work has been featured by The BBC, The Barbican and Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Instagram: @maedbjoy
Twitter: @maedbjoy
Website: www.maedbjoy.com
Carmen Ali
Carmen Ali (also known as April Fiasco) is a comedian, actor, burlesque performer, and writer. She is co-artistic director of Sexquisite and a co-organiser at socialist strip club Cybertease. She has been featured by The BBC, The Guardian, TimeOut, Vice Magazine, & Novara Media. In 2021 she was selected to be part of Soho Comedy Plus Labs, and she is a regular performer on the London cabaret and comedy scene. Her work has been published in 3 zines co-created by Sexquisite - '$tripped!'(The Zine), 'How To Talk to Sex Workers', and 'Whore Stories' - the last of which is currently available at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Instagram: @harlotgoddess
Twitter: @harlotgoddess
Website: www.carmenali.com
Photo credit: @studiomedusaphoto taken at Sexquisite: Stripped! - Our recent play which was showcased at The Glory, March 2022.
Samantha Sun
Samantha Sun is an artist, academic, activist, semi-retired stripper, professional cabaret and circus performer pocket rocket. She is the co-director of East London Strippers Collective, a social enterprise that aims to repackage the erotic labour of strippers to provide them with meaningful, non-precarious employment. She's currently studying a Masters degree at London School of Economics and Political science to bolster her work and business practices within the adult industry. She's performed internationally in Mykonos, Shanghai, Beijing and Rotterdam. Her work involves hosting pop-up events at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts and Institute of Contemporary Arts. She's recently given a Tedx talk on sex worker justice.
Instagram: @samantha.sunn
Chao-Ying Rao
Chao-Ying Rao (also known as Betty) is an East Asian multi-disciplinary artist. A 2020 Glasgow School of Art graduate with a BA(Hons) in Painting and Printmaking, Betty also holds an MA(Hons) in Philosophy and English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. She lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.
Betty’s research interests circulate around fringe and contentious topics as she playfully analyses our habitual discomforts. Fascinated by their undertones, she finds them to speak volumes about our shared anxieties and social values. Partly influenced by her experience in the sex industry where she spent a good decade of her life, her practice combines her lived experiences alongside questions of censorship, objectification, fetishisation, and bodily autonomy.
Black Venus
Black Venus is a sex worker, martial artist, writer and performer whose work explores themes of power, subversion, deviance and feminism. She is founder of Sex and Rage, a sex worker and activist organisation resisting stigma and shame through sex education.
@blackvenusinfurs
Sexquisite
Sexquisite is a community arts company and sex worker artist collective, co-directed by Guildhall School alumni Maedb Joy. Sexquisite creates groundbreaking and stigma-defying work through cabaret, theatre and workshops. Launched in 2019, they are committed to showcasing sex workers’ art and support the full decriminalisation of sex work.
Dates and Times
Bishopsgate Institute x Guildhall School: Impurity!
, 14:00 - 16:30
