« S.W.E.A.T. » (Sex/uality. Work. Extraction. Art. Theatr/ics): with Ahmad Badawy #37

I met Ahmad at the protest camp in front of the German parliament, where we were both calling attention to Germany’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Ahmad is originally from Egypt, where he was deeply involved in the 2011 revolution and in grassroots workers’ organizing. He’s published countless articles and contributed to the collaborative book We Were There: Liberal Young Voices from the Egyptian Revolution. In this episode, we talk about his experiences in Egypt, the lessons he’s carried into organizing in Germany, and his vision for building inclusive, collective movements around universal human rights.

We all sweat as we provide care, as we labour, as we perform our work, as we fuck, as we survive and as we sacrifice one choice for the other. How exactly do we define our work and how does that work entangle and circumscribe our sexual identities, our racialized bodies, our creative lives and the ways in which we provide care? How do we perform both tasks and identities within the framework of that which we consider work? These conversations are a means to speak between intersectionalities by anchoring through our (always, already, and ever pervasive) sexualized and racialized bodies, our working bodies, our artistic bodies and our performative bodies. I hope that they contribute to dialogues which normalize sex work as work, and all work as deserving of respect, healthy conditions, and a living wage.

You can find out more https://www.alfabus.us/s-w-e-a-t/

Mad Kate (they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer, performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfcking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies, audibility, consent, proximity, and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world.