This past weekend, Nov. 18 to 20, ArtWorks for Freedom highlighted the issue of human trafficking in a new multimedia piece called “In Plain Sight.” This World Premiere Collaboration between choreographer Christopher K. Morgan, composer Ignacio Alcover, and photographer Kay Chernush drew inspiration from Chernush’s “Bought and Sold” series of images, which were integrated with dance, movement, and original music.
Chernush has described her “Bought and Sold” series as “an attempt to put a human face on the statistics and headlines, to tell the stories of modern-day enslavement and the journey towards freedom.”
The four performances of “In Plain Sight” were part of a dance program called “Reveal,” which inaugurated the newly renovated Black Box Theater at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD.
“It has been a galvanizing and inspiring process to see this subject matter anew, through different artistic lenses and the creative synergies between Christopher, Ignacio, the dancers and my images,” said Chernush.
Check out the “Bought and Sold” exhibit here.
Kay Chernush has worked extensively with Free the Slaves, helping us document our frontline work. She took the striking image above, of laborers in charcoal camps in Brazil. Slavery is found in the supply chains of Brazilian pig iron, produced in charcoal camps like the one above. (For more information about our work in Brazil, go here!).
This past Saturday, another artist decided to give a voice to the voiceless, quite literally, through rap, at the Mahal Benefit Concert in Fullerton, CA. At this benefit for the Mahal Foundation (“mahal” meaning love in Tagalog), which supports orphanages in the Philippines, rapper Mickey Cho performed a chillingly heartfelt song called “Not for Sale,” dedicated to women and girls in sex trafficking.
“Her life is worth more than that / Her life is worth more than that…
We use the internet to search up all the best gifts / But these girls are being sold around on Craigslist”
Listen to “Not for Sale”
