When artist Daze Jefferies describes her new exhibition, pleasuremonger, she speaks of sex worker justice and a social and political framework that recognizes sex workers as workers, challenges criminalization and calls for care and dignity.

“This exhibition is also about waves of change,” she said. “I wanted to centre Newfoundland and Labrador sex worker histories in order to reflect on lineages and intergenerational connections, and to envision a way forward that recognizes the enduring presence of sex worker communities.”

For Ms. Jefferies, the exhibition is both an artistic statement and an act of remembrance.

It brings stories that are intimately tied to the ocean and coastal industries, such as the fishery, military defence and trade, to the surface through a rich visual language: whore’s eggs, tangled nets, beach roses and slippery, fish-like beings that blur the boundaries between myth, body and ocean.

A legacy of creative resistance

Curated by Emily Critch, pleasuremonger follows decades of arts-based activism in the province.

From performances by sex worker activists Carol Leigh (Scarlot Harlot) and Annie Sprinkle, to the photovoice project Let Us Stop Living Secret Lives, the exhibition is in dialogue with a lineage of creative resistance.

For Ms. Jefferies, contributing to this legacy meant investing in both research and collaboration.

She spent years in archives and engaged in oral histories with sex workers whose stories shaped every part of the exhibition.

So did Mx. Critch.

Together, the two have cultivated a steady creative partnership since 2022, building trust and shared vision over multiple projects, including Ms. Jeffries’ 2024 solo show at The Rooms, stay here stay how stay.

Voices at the centre

Among the works most meaningful to Ms. Jefferies is a poem assembled from the voices of her transgender loved ones with lived experience in sex work, paired with an audio installation that forms an ambient chorus.

“It’s a siren song that doesn’t endanger, but hopes to transform.”

Another highlight is a series of erasure poems created during Ms. Jefferies’ Grenfell Campus residency.

Using stigmatizing 1940s newspaper articles as source material, printed on fragile newsprint from the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill, the pieces were collaboratively aged and cared for by Grenfell staff and students.

Both artist and curator hope pleasuremonger encourages deeper reflection about the province’s social history.

“For some who view the exhibition, this may be the first time where they are critically engaging with the histories and lived realities of sex workers in this province,” Mx. Critch says.

For Ms. Jefferies, the exhibition is an invitation to think critically about decriminalization, stigma, bodily autonomy and survival.

Roots at Memorial University

Ms. Jefferies traces her artistic and research practice back to her studies in gender studies and folklore at Memorial University, where her mentors supported feminist, arts-based methods and the exploration of marginalized histories.

Mx. Critch’s bachelor of fine arts program at Grenfell laid the foundation for their curatorial practice, as did their time working as a curatorial assistant at the Grenfell Art Gallery.

pleasuremonger is more than an exhibition; it is a reclamation of erased narratives. A call for justice. A gathering of past, present and future voices that are woven into shared memory.

The show is open until March 28 at the Grenfell Art Gallery in Corner Brook.