“Botanical Bodies” by Nasreen Khan with photos by Rachel Schwebach brings wood burnings, leather burnings, photography, and participant audio narratives to the Fonseca-Du Bois Gallery powered by Arte Mexicano en Indiana and located at the Indianapolis Liberation Center.
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Created in conversation with sex workers, the project centers participants who chose botanicals that resonated with their lives, their work, and the ways they wanted to be represented. Nasreen’s previous works, such as “Boodle Fight” with Bryn Jackson and “Cicatrix,” focus on her past experiences raised in Indonesia and West Africa and of her adult life in Haughville. Her practice moves through writing, public theology, pyrography, leather, wood, botany, and natural materials, asking what it means to make art from things that were once alive. She uses influences to bring this collaborative ethnography to life.
Rachel’s background as a self-proclaimed “Smut Peddler” and as a close friend to Kahn made her the perfect photographer for this project, which she also participated in. Her work has long centered intimacy and trust with the bodies of people often pushed to the margins. When it comes to sex, Rachel had described Indiana as more ‘bundled up” but has still found an accepting community through work with the Rocket Doll Revue, White Rabbit Cabaret, and Amorous Arts through BRIDGE Collective.
The project came from the participants themselves and was made possible through the Power Plant Grant, facilitated by Big Car Collaborative, and supported by Andy Warhol Foundation. The exhibition asks viewers to listen to the voices of the participants and to consider what is bought, sold, judged, hidden, and reclaimed through sex work.
Filming/Editing/Writing: Jay Grillo
Production Assistance: Cecilia Gomez and Honesty Gleaves
This series is in partnership with the Fonseca-Du Bois Gallery and filmed at the Indy Liberation Center as an effort to highlight independent artists and uplift marginalized and oppressed communities through the stories behind their work.