About This Show

Ten years ago, $pread hit the market as the first U.S. magazine by and for sex workers and their allies. After five years it closed shop, but left in its wake a community more inspired than ever to continue its mission of illuminating the sex industry and insisting that sex workers speak for themselves. Original drawings, photographs, and graphic design brought the words in the magazine to life. Now, the artists of $pread, and others inspired by them, present a collection of art from the magazine alongside new work from the vibrant sex worker rights community.

Damien Luxe (Co-Curator) is a self-described “queer femme liberationist artist, digital -technologist, and community organizer” living in New York. She is the Cultural Organizer and Performing Arts Curator for a project she co-founded, Heels on Wheels, which curates both the working-class-led, multi-racial queer-femme performance art traveling show, ‘Glitter Roadshow,’ as well as the NYC-based monthly event, Opentoe Peepshow, which has produced radical, punk community-driven events across the country. With Heels on Wheels she has also organized many singular special events of queer and feminist curated performance art. As an artist, her recent major performance works include: Not By Bread Alone, playing with mermaids and powdered milk to explore thriving past poverty and trauma; Exorcize, a satirical and serious healing aerobics program for all bodies; Hot Pink Mass, a church service that invokes the deity Trisha; and Femmes Fight Back, an interactive installation honoring queer herstories. Damien was $pread’s Art Director from 2007-2009.

Audacia Ray (Co-Curator) is the founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Red Umbrella Project, a peer-led NYC-based organization that “amplifies the voices of people in the sex trades.” She is also the editor of RedUP’s literary journal ‘Prose & Lore: Memoir Stories About Sex Work,’ and leads media, memoir, and advocacy trainings and workshops. Audacia was co-Executive Editor of $pread Magazine from 2006-2009. She was also the curator behind $pread’s two visual art shows, ‘Sex Worker Visions’ (2006) and ‘Visions II: One Nation Under Dildo’ (2007). Audacia worked as in-house curator at Arena Studios from 2007-2008, and produced two noteworthy shows, ‘Demimonde: The Art of Molly Crabapple,’ and ‘Modified Eros: A Photographic Exploration of Body Modification.’ From 2001-2003 she worked as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Sex. She is a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology ‘$pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution’ (Feminist Press, 2015).

Eliyanna Kaiser (Art Director ) is a stay-at-home mom ruled by rambunctious toddler twins. She has worked with the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center and the Red Umbrella Project in the development and facilitation of various workshops and trainings for sex workers. She is also a fiction writer whose work has been featured in various short fiction genre magazines and anthologies. Eliyanna was co-Executive Editor of $pread Magazine from 2006-2010. She is a co-editor of the forthcoming anthology ‘$pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution’ (Feminist Press, 2015).

Spark to a Flame is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.