A QUIET revolution in the sex industry, powered by innovations such as OnlyFans, has been empowering sex workers to take agency over their bodies and could consign stereotypes about their profession to historical footnotes.

That’s one of the provocative themes in the exhibition Body of Opportunity by South Fremantle artist Tania Ferrier; a revisiting of the industry 30 years after her highly successful 1980s project Pop Porn put its seedy side under the spotlight and even had megastar Madonna wearing a set of the show’s iconic Angry Underwear.

Ferrier was giving a talk at the Fremantle Arts Centre a year ago when a fan in the audience, sexologist and stripper Gabriella Revas Utera, put forward a challenge.

• Circus clown performer and Fringe Festival burlesque performer Gaea Anastas with sex workers Ruby Bujega and Gabriela Revas Ureta, along with will be performing today at Tania Ferrier’s exhibition Body of Opportunity. Photo by Steve Grant

“She came to my talk about Angry Underwear… and said ‘well, come back to the strip club and see what’s happening now’,” Ferrier said.

Revas Utera outlined how sex workers had become more empowered and gained agency in the decades since the assault of a stripper in a New York club where Ferrier worked sparked Pop Porn.

Ferrier says initially she didn’t take up the idea because she’d just finished a show, but with some enthusiastic prodding from arts centre curator Andre Lipscombe decided the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“The Fremantle Arts Centre did a whole hunt to find Gabby; luckily she registered to come to the talk – I think there’s about 30 people involved – and I remembered she’d said her name was Gabby.”

Ferrier said Revas Utera’s aim to destigmatise sex work so she could freely discuss her work in her community captured her attention, particularly as many of her shows had already dealt with stigma, such as her exploration of Rottnest Island’s dark history in The Quod Project.

“It’s the same thing as with Pop Porn, in a way, even though I realised that the word porn is extremely difficult to use at any time.

“But whenever you stigmatise and taboo a word entirely and try to take it out of circulation, you create a problem because parents won’t sit and talk to the children about appropriate sex.

“You’ve got to look into what’s going on with this shutdown and you’ve got to open up a space for conversation.

“Otherwise you create, essentially, a sickness in society,” Ferrier told the Herald.

Revas Uteras, who holds a master’s degree in sexology from Curtin University and was born in Chile, says Australians are pretty awkward when it comes to discussing sex.

• Tania Ferrier’s image In Search of the Nude.

“Anything that has to do with sexuality, intimacy and pleasure, it’s taboo; we don’t talk, we don’t share it, especially in Australian society.

“So then I found that for someone to work utilising their sexuality, sensuality, their bodies, is even the next level of taboo.”

Revas Utera said stripping and sex work is more commonly referenced in pop culture these days, particularly in music, and younger people are more relaxed about the industry, but old attitudes linger.

“If people have issues with their own sexuality, then when they see a woman empowered and using their sexuality for profit, it will be confronting, it will be challenging.

“I think that’s the whole idea of this project for me, was to embrace all of who I am; a mother, a member of the community. I’m a dancer – that’s my job – I’m also a sex educator, and how can I integrate all of that without feeling that some aspects add value and some aspects take value from me.

“That’s my life project.”

The club where Revas Utera performs is now owned by a woman who’d worked her way up from being a skimpy barmaid, and she says it’s not the only part of the industry undergoing change.

• Tania Ferrier. Photo by Steve Grant

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“Now there is OnlyFans there is the democratisation of the production aspect, which has changed the industry as well.

“In the early 2000s or ‘90s, to do a porn you needed equipment which meant you needed capital. Now, we just need a phone and an account, and then you can start making money making content.”

Ferrier said the tut-tutting about sex workers usually come from people who haven’t been to a burlesque show, let alone a strip club, and discriminatory attitudes can have serious consequences.

“Society also needs to catch up because a great article that just came out when I started this project was about workers in Sydney, and how the banking system still won’t let women get a bank account, and so they’re stuck in a cash economy, and a cash economy can then lead to getting robbed on the way home.”

Revas Utera said the health system also discriminated against sex workers, particularly those offering full sexual services.

“They assume that they are drug users, they assume that they are not in charge of their life, they assume that they all have health issues.

“For example, if someone shows up with a bruise, they assume that they were abused.”

While Ferrier is lead artist, the exhibition of 74 images also includes work by photographers Sascha Turisini and Nikita Dunovits-Ferrier.

Former Funkellero Abe Dunovits has written a musical score and Dana Stoll created the costumes which the performers will wear for a final performance today (Saturday February 10 at 1pm) at Gallery Central in Aberdeen Street, Perth, while there will be an artists’ talk at 4pm and the images will be on show until tomorrow.