This panel centers sex work as work and examines how women reclaim agency, visibility, and dignity through collaborative image-making. Moving away from voyeurism, moral judgment, and extractive representation, the works presented foreground consent, authorship, and professional identity.
Moderated by Sofia Kouloukouri and Alexios Seilopoulos, curators of the film program Pleasure and Disobedience, the conversation will also open onto broader questions of desire, resistance, and authorship across photography and cinema, allowing for connections between the artists’ practices and the curators’ long-term research.
Through close collaboration and shared trust, these projects shift the terms of representation. Rather than speaking about sex workers, the images are shaped with them. Visibility becomes a form of self-determination, care, and solidarity, affirming sex work as legitimate labor and as a space where women assert control over their own image and narrative.
Alexis Kleshik is a New York City-based photographer and director. She holds a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design at The New School. Her work explores self-identity, sexuality, and femininity, often collaborating with sex workers and the queer community to create intimate, self-representative imagery.
Born in 1993 in Wiesbaden, Germany, and currently residing in Bitche, France, Grönemeyer is a photographer and director known for blending classical artistry with contemporary themes. Her journey into photography began during her business studies in New York, quickly evolving into a profound artistic pursuit.
Moderated by
Alexios Seilopoulos is a brand strategist and creative director. He is the founder of the London-based creative agency Apropos, where he has led high-profile campaigns for governments, brands, institutions and NGOs, combining strategic thinking with powerful storytelling in film, photography and design.
His curatorial projects on LGBTQ+ history, urban identity and social justice include a panel discussion at the Barbican Centre on Art
Queer Resistance with writer and ACT UP founding member Sarah Schulman and photographer Sunil Gupta (London, 2023), and the Pleasure
Disobedience film program (Athens, 2024 and 2025).
He holds an MA from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He lives between London and Athens.
Sofia Kouloukouri is a visual artist, performer, and art historian. Through endurance and narration, her work deals with literal and affective weights as a feminine heritage originating in the education of girls, myth and religious doctrines. Kouloukouri holds Masters degrees in cinema studies (AUTH, Thessaloniki), Visual Arts (Edhea, Sierre), and Art History (UNIGE, Genève). Her writings have been published by Nero Editions, Miami Books and The Art Newspaper. Her first book Artistes Femmes et Travail du Sexe was published by L Harmattan in 2025. Kouloukouri s work has been presented among others at : Bourse de Commerce / Collection Pinault, Paris; Centre Wallonie- Bruxelles, Paris; Roman Road, London; Théâtre du Grütli, Genève; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Buenos Aires (MACBA), Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA), Lausanne; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhague. In 2024 Kouloukouri was part of ORGANISMO: Art in Applied Critical Ecologies a research program led by TBA21 and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. In 2025 Kouloukouri was selected by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) for a residency at the Cité internationale des Arts, Paris.
