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‘Absence of Evidence’ is the collaborative outdoor photography project striving to raise awareness about the conditions of sex work while building a safer future for women involved in prostitution.
A collaborative outdoor photography project between artist duo Henry/Bragg and a group of former sex workers known as ‘Untold Stories’ is striving to elevate the voices of women involved in the industry and transform the narratives around how their work is perceived.
The pop-up exhibition – titled Absence of Evidence – features fourteen images honouring fourteen sex workers who have died since 2014 due to ‘murder, suspected murder, overdose, substance-related health conditions, and the secondary effects of working under on-street conditions.’
Published across four billboards with accompanying images, the project is drawing attention to how rarely cases such as these are investigated and accurately categorised. ‘She had two little boys and it was on a boy’s birthday that she was found,’ reads one of the text fragments alongside an image showing the site of an unseen tragedy. Representing the experience of a woman subject to devastating violence in the city of Hull, UK, the role of art in this story is not merely a means of self-expression.
Four years ago, Hull became the only local authority in England to use a specific law directly targeting sex workers, further marginalising them. In enacting Section 222 of the 1972 Local Government Act, any women found working in restricted areas were threatened with legal action, including prison sentences. This, unfortunately, forced them deeper underground into a highly dangerous working environment that left them more exposed than ever before.
