In March of last year, We Are Everywhere, a film by Areem Rose, was screened at Clinton Street Theater. One year later, Rose, along with Cloud Stokely and Nikki Lev, began discussing the idea of hosting We Are Everywhere Fest, a film and art festival that also featured a pole competition. The film, like the festival, is made by sex workers for sex workers.
Stokely, a featured performer in the film who helped organize the screening, said it was warmly received. “It was encouraging to see the positive response," said Stokely, "…normies seeing sex workers in a real and intimate setting,"
The film followed five different sex workers (including Stokely) who lived and worked through the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and highlighted the difficulties of working during this time in an already high-risk field. Although the screening was successful, Rose found difficulty getting the film accepted at film festivals. Not discouraged, Rose decided to do what every artist ends up doing in Portland.
DIY. “If I can’t get my film into a festival, I’ll just make my own festival,” Rose explained.
Inspired by the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival in San Francisco, Rose thought something similar would fit perfectly in Portland. Anyone reading this magazine is probably aware that Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in America. The last numbers I saw show we have one club for every 11,286 residents. That's more than Las Vegas and New Orleans. By that metric, we definitely have more sex workers per capita than San Francisco, so such a festival seems more than appropriate up on our side of the West Coast.
"Although we have a city where there are so many sex workers and everyone knows a sex worker, there's still a stigma regarding the role,” Stokely remarked.
Rose’s film addressed this stigma by letting the featured performers tell their stories, showing them as service industry workers, no different than all the bartenders who live here, as well. The organizers hope the festival will further destigmatize the profession by showing the creative side of these folks in the community.
The festival itself is split into three days this month.
The first day, Monday, August 11, is a film festival, once again held at Clinton Street Theater. All the films featured will be made by sex workers, and conclude with another screening of the titular film by Rose. Don't expect all the entries to involve sex work in some fashion, either. One of the films is an adorable documentary about bunnies. There will also be a raffle for gift baskets from various sex worker retail stores, plus coupons for yoga studios and massage companies.
The second day, Tuesday, August 12, is a pole competition. It’ll basically be a takeover of Lev’s Kit-N-Kaboodle showcase on Tuesdays at Kit Kat Club. Readers of this magazine are probably already familiar with this themed night that champions all body types and genders. When Rose and Stokely brought the idea of the festival to Lev, Kit-N-Kaboodle seemed like the perfect night to host the pole competition day of the festival, since the evening already centered around inclusivity. Toxic, whom I know every reader is at least vaguely familiar with, will be coming down from Seattle to MC the competition. First place will be a cash prize of a thousand dollars, with smaller cash prizes for second and third place.
The third day, Wednesday, August 13, the final night of the festival, is a gallery show featuring 2D and 3D art made exclusively by local sex workers, with a DJ providing music for the showing. The gallery will be hosted at a shared studio space (215 SE Morrison St.) and feature a variety of different pieces.
“Not surprisingly, lots of sex workers are also artists. Who knew?” Lev intoned. There’s been much talk of several pieces involving repurposed pleasers. But like the bunny documentary, the art isn't always focused on the job. Expect a variety of installations. There will be some "really, really fun takes blending the sex work persona and the artist persona [of some of the featured artists]," Stokely elaborated.
Like every other artistic endeavor in Portland, this is clearly a labor of love. They pulled it together this year, but if enough of you readers turn up and the festival becomes a success, this power trio is more than happy to make it happen next year and the year after that. "The sky's the limit," says Lev.
Rose intends to keep this festival going every year for at least the next few years, but confessed that they hope to one day take the show on the road. Although Portland is number one, there are sex workers in every city in America, and it's an easy bet that they daylight as artists. (See what I did there?)
But everything starts somewhere, and this one starts on the second Monday of this month. Although it mostly worked to coincide with the night Lev hosts at Kit Kat Club, Lev was also pleased with the festival being held in the beginning of the week. Since this event is also for sex workers, it helps that it’s not competing with people’s schedules, particularly the big money-making days of Thursday through Sunday.
We Are Everywhere Fest is a three-day event "created by and for sex workers, with the goal of amplifying creative expression, celebrating resilience, and dismantling stigma through public art, film, and movement," says Rose, concerning the festival's mission statement. A reminder that these are members of the community, just like the bartenders, bouncers, and DJs. Not the cops, those are not members of the community. And like every other member of the community that is Portland, they are also artists trying to find their audience. Do ‘em a solid and be that audience. After all, they are everywhere. They are right behind you.
