NEW: HUMAN NEGOTIATIONS work in progress

Human Negotiations is an experimental two-year collaboration between photographer Katharina Hesse and writer Lara Day, using both images and text to explore the lives of a community of Bangkok sex workers.

Leaving aside stereotypes of exploited, downtrodden Third World females coerced into a profession in which they are passive victims, Human Negotiations reveals a more nuanced, open-ended world where women take center stage, and where reality’s complexities leave room for wider interpretations.

Documentary photographs and fictional vignettes based on real-life interviews focus on subjects who have not been coerced into their jobs, but who choose work in the sex industry as a means towards a better life: a mother supporting a child, a ladyboy saving up for cosmetic surgery, a girl from the countryside looking to strike it rich in the big city, a woman living the lifestyle to enable her own freedom and independence.

While Human Negotiations is intended for publication as a book, the following slideshow provides a glimpse into the project as it stands.

note :

Photographs / text of the project have been shown so far at :

-LOOK 3, 2008 ( David Alan Harvey, Road Trips projection)

-Chobi Mela V, Bangladesh, 2009

-Noorderlicht Fotogalerie “Summer of Love”, July-August 2009,

-Noorderlicht Fotofestival; “Pursuit of Happiness”, September 2009, The Netherlands

- Arles in Beijing : April 20, 2010

-" Lingering Whispers" , London, Crypt, St Pancras Church, May-June 2010, UK