Private Gathering: Sex Work and Artistic Practice

At APHIDS, invisible programming refers to work that happens behind the scenes: research, gatherings, conversations, experiments. These may not be public-facing, but they underpin artistic outputs and organisational direction.

In 2025, as we prepared to work on The Act (produced by Performing Lines), APHIDS held a closed-door consultation with a small group of artists who are also sex workers. No one was recorded. Nothing was performed.

We were not gleaning performance material or stories from the participants to be used in the production; the gathering was an outcome unto itself. It centred the lived experience of balancing sex work and art-making: where they intersect, where they fuel each other, and where they come into conflict. We gathered because there are things that happen in the body, through dance, through writing, through sex, that cannot be neatly categorised. We gathered to speak, to listen, and to rest in the company of people who understand what it is to work with both intimacy and performance, service and authorship.

We spoke about boundaries, about blurred lines, about moving between public and private. We sat with the weight of visibility. We asked what it means to be an artist when your body is also your work. We asked what kind of art gets funded, what kind of art is ‘safe’, what kind of art costs more than it pays. We talked about performing desire, and about desire itself.

We remain grateful to the participants who shared their time, thoughts, and trust.