We Are Everywhere 2.0
Readers may remember I covered We Are Everywhere Festival in last year’s August issue. Hopefully it intrigued you enough to go check out the film festival, the pole competition, the art gallery, or all three, if you weren’t lame.
One of the main goals of the event’s organizer and founder, Areem Rose, was to do it again the following year—and, if possible, the year after that.
Thanks to the elbow grease and can-do attitude of Rose and her collaborators from last year—Cloud Stokely and Nikki Lev —and a little financial support from the RACC fund, it looks like Rose achieved those goals.
We Are Everywhere Festival returns this year, Sep 8-13, and Rose has secured funding to ensure it’ll happen in 2027, as well. Dreams really do come true when our tax dollars go to funding the arts and community-centered events, and not bombing children overseas.
But I digress.
“This year it has expanded,” Rose confirmed. The RACC (Regional Arts & Culture Council) fund is a highly competitive grant awarded to only a handful of applicants each year. Last year’s event was largely funded by Rose, Stokely, and Lev directly out of their pockets. This year, the grant is not only easing their personal financial burden, but also helping to expand and develop the event.
“This helps pay for frames, pay for submission fees for the artists, plus we’re putting it back into the show…and we have enough grant money for next year,” Rose explained.
All three organizers were quite satisfied with last year’s turnout. The inaugural 2025 festival would be considered a success by any standards, but especially since these three had next to no outside financial support. People showed up. People threw down dollars. People cheered.
“The pole competition was well attended; there was great energy,” reflected Lev. “We mostly filled up the Clinton Street Theater. We had a constant flow of people—artists and their friends—coming in and out of the gallery.”
“The response last year was really encouraging,” agreed Stokely. “One of the coolest things when we wrapped was people directly telling us how much the pieces impacted them. There’s clearly a need within the community to provide a space for sex workers to express themselves in a sensual way that doesn’t necessarily have to do with their bodies.”
Already, this year’s festival promises to be bigger. The pole competition has fourteen applicants, and ten artists will be featured in the art gallery. At least five films are being featured, but as of writing this, Rose and Lev are still reviewing applications. Although last year’s film festival wasn’t exactly safe for work, this year’s features will be more explicit. If you had any doubts, definitely leave the kids at home.
“We don’t have any G-rated bunny documentaries this year,” Lev joked, referring to an entry from last year.
“You could say it’s more exotic this year,” Rose added. (See what they did there.) [Editor nods in agreement and notes the pun is—and always will be—intended…]
And speaking of exotic, Rose and Lev will be publicly premiering a BDSM video they filmed a few years ago at Portland’s own Sub Rosa, as one of the film entries. God, I love this city.
Rose will also be presenting “Withering Daisy,” a not-so-adult offering. There's really a wide scope of presentations for this year's show—something for everyone.
While there will be several new voices featured in this year’s festival, a few artists from last year are set to appear again.
“We have another banger from Pepper Dagger!” Lev was happy to announce. Pepper Dagger dazzled audiences last year with her clown-themed film. This year, expect latex and PVC in an arcade. Lev described the film as “visually striking.” Good news for folks with coulrophobia!
Sel Tastéme, who had two pieces featured in last year’s gallery, will have pieces appearing in this year’s gallery show.
“Her evolution as an artist has grown so much since last year,” Rose beamed.
Tastéme fondly recalls last year’s festival as a friendly and welcoming environment for sex workers, current and former. She described it as a freeing experience, where the stigma attached to sex work was basically nonexistent. Last year, the gallery featured a little drink station run by our mighty trio, plus a couch with a TV set up, where the film festival submissions were played on repeat. “They also had crochet!” Tastéme added.
It cannot be overstated how important events like these are to not only destigmatize sex work, but celebrate it. Such events also demonstrate how sex work can inform art in a visceral, universal way. As Tastéme said, sex workers “have insight into people’s deepest desires. They have insight into parts of the human experience that aren’t often talked about.”
It also cannot be overstated how important it is just to have something fun and inclusive to do in this dystopian hellscape, that shows no signs of improving. “Now is a really cool time to gather and collaborate with other artists,” mused Stokely. “Especially since life can be so daunting with the state of things.”
Gee whiz, whatever could they be talking about?
It's pole dancing, short films, and art pieces by integral members of your community. Your neighbors. The person you’re looking at right now in the club. There’s a hundred percent chance that person is also an artist. It’s sad that even in a debauched and degenerate city like Portland, these people feel like they need to keep their art and work separate. Events like this help them realize they don’t need to.
“I was definitely trying to keep my art separate from my dance career before WAE (We Are Everywhere) fest,” Tastéme confided. “I was nervous about whether I’d be taken seriously.”
Post-We Are Everywhere Festival, Tastéme feels much more confident in their art, and in how sex work informs and inspires it.
It seems downright silly how even in Portland, sex workers feel their art must be distanced from how they pay rent and spend most of their time. No one’s art should. Why should theirs? They are, after all…everywhere.
Festival Details
Tuesday, Sep. 8 – Pole Competition @ Kit Kat Club (takeover of Lev’s Kit-N-Kaboodle)
Thursday, Sep. 10 – Art Show @ 215 SE Morrison St
Sunday, Sep. 13 – Film Festival @ Clinton St. Theater
More info at @waefestpdx on Instagram
