Katsu Naito
The Title: Snowy Summer
Introduction;
I met Miss Porsche Jones in 1992 working as a street sex worker in the Meatpacking District. I was photographing street sex workers for my project at that time.
She was prostitute for 20 years, a homeless for 15 years since 1990, she lived the cheap hotel near the Meatpacking District and slept on the streets or on the highline when she couldn’t secure the room. Miss Porsche had reached out to me totally unexpected during the pandemic. It certainly blew my mind to hear from her because many of them have passed away and she was on that list.
Trans individual who had no option but been a sex worker to sustain their living.
They were truly marginalized people since a social trend and society weren’t ready to accept them at all. Many of them had unimaginable life experiences and only a few of them have survived. Their voices must be heard.
Story to create;
This project is to focus on the survivor’s personal profound story.
In the Portfolio description, there are list of subjects who survived and who didn’t.
The survivors are Miss Porsche, Egypt, Brenda and Dominique.
Miss Porsche is open to participate the project. She still communicates with the rest of survivors and is going to ask them to join. They will express their inner feelings and to talk how they became a street sex worker, how they have survived and to turn their life around, and to talk about their community friends who lost their lives, to convey their raw voices through photograph and video.
I am also inviting Miss Kristen Lovell as the subject who directed THE STROLL.
They will be photographed in various situations in the public environments and in their personal spaces.
Purpose;
This project to give hope for a younger generation in the same situation as she was, to motivate to elevate their life platform, to help the marginalized community not to have emotional boundaries in the society at any levels and to understand them in a deeper consciousness.