Workshop, Guided tour, Panel discussion ▪︎ The rotten smell is you
The rotten smell is you – Workshop, Guided tour, Panel discussion
1. 8. 2024.
18h, 19h, 19:30h
Podroom Gallery
Participating artists: Kristina Bajilo, Nikola Balberčáková, Sophia Giovannitti, Đejmi Hadrović, Aja Janković, Merlinka Working Group (Pavle Banović, Marija Iva Gocić, Leah Rivka Lapiower, Sara Pantović, Chloé Sassi), Milica Mijajlović Živković, Pennie Key, Jessica Stoya, Zuzana Svatík
Curator: Jelisaveta Rapaić
Timetable:
18.00 Workshop (registry necessary)
19.00 Guided tour
19.30 Panel discussion followed by Q&A and a book signing
We cordially invite you to join us on the evening of 1st of August 2024 from 18.00 for the program accompanying the exhibition The rotten smell is you, which will consist of a closed circle sexuality workshop by Jessica Stoya, followed by the guided tour open to public and a panel discussion.
18.00 Sexuality workshop for women (and people in transition) which will explore female anatomy and sexuality, facilitated by Jessica Stoya who began working as a fetish model in the mid-2000s and proceeded into a career as a performer in adult films. She has written about sexual labor, and the way the world reacts to it, professionally since 2012. Her first book, Philosophy, Pussycats, & Porn, has been translated into three languages including Serbian. She once tried to unionize pornography, and now lives in Belgrade with two cats.
Registry is necessary and there are limited spots available. To secure your spot please write an email to therottensmellisyou@gmail.com with an answer to the question ‘’ What does sex mean to you?’’, also it is necessary to include your name and phone number. Please include Sexuality workshop in the subject title. Please note that the workshop will be held in English and that the age requirement for joining is 18+, the first people to register will receive the details, the workshop is free of charge.
19.00 Guided tour of The rotten smell is you exhibition with the curator Jelisaveta Rapaić and some of the participating artists. The guided tour is open to the public, no registry needed.
19.30 Panel discussion on the topics intertwined in the fabric of the exhibition, such as sex workers rights abroad and in the region with Staša Plećaš, executive director of SWAN and Jessica Stoya, Merlinka’s legacy with representatives of the Working Group Merlinka, Pavle Banović and Marija Iva Gocić. The panel is moderated by the exhibition’s curator Jelisaveta Rapaić. The panel will last roughly an hour, with 15 minutes reserved for the audience questions and dialogue. The panel discussion is open to the public, no registry needed.
The second edition of The Rotten Smell is You group exhibition, which is realized in collaboration with the Cultural Center of Belgrade, welcomes some changes in relation to its first presentation at Kunsthalle Bratislava (5.9-16.10.2023). The artistic positions were carefully readjusted (rebalanced) to include additional geographies and histories, and to emphasise the gaps which exist within the local context. The second volume of this exhibition also came to creation as a direct reaction and an urgency to the growing favoritism and haze around the rise of right wing politics in 2024. By examining and uncovering the interior turmoil and the generational gap within the feminist movement, this exhibition explores the underlying frenzie of the right wing appropriation and mirror worlds of post-truth and conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, The Rotten Smell is You, builds a storyline incorporating different experiences and expressions to analyse the gap between the third and the fourth wave feminists that is mostly noticed in the discourse regarding transness, sex work and hyperfemininity, topics on which the movement fails to stand united, failing its own offspring.
*Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023)