We titled this show Survival of the artist: Resisting Recession Oppression and Depression because its about the economy of our survival. to us this means its about the math of our emotions- how things add up in our lives and how they add up in our hearts.

As young women in the sex trade, we are constantly surviving and battling oppression from systems of power. (A system of power is any institution or system that tries to dominate, control or take our power away from us.) We titled this art show “Survival of the Artist...:” not so much to show ways that we are oppressed, but to show how we are resilient to oppression and how we stand up and fight against it every day. Art is one method of resilience we use. We use art to show that we are multi-faceted, and what we do isn't who we are. Society de-humanizes us by saying all that we are is “prostitutes” and “criminals.” YWEP doesn’t believe in these terms. We rebel against them. We believe all girls are priceless, and we support all girls who do what they have to do to survive.

We have been paying attention to the war on girls, poor girls and girls of color. We have been the foot soldiers of the resistance trying as hard as we can to duck and dodge this war every day. We are experts in our lives and we have been resisting the recession since before we were born. We have the tools to share about how its done and we know this recession did not start last year.

We have been talking about how recession+oppression=depression. we fight depression with healing. we resist. we bounce back. we know we are winning. this art show is about healing through our creativity and reclaiming what was stolen and building a movement of girls that grows stronger every day.