Pleasure & Danger

by ellen jerstad og rosie whiting

This preproject by Rosie Whiting and Ellen Jerstad, activates archival sound recordings from the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality—a defining rupture in feminist history where polarised positions clashed over pornography, sex work, sexual safety, and the tension between pleasure & danger. Rather than treating the material as history, the project uses it as a live dramaturgical engine for an unrehearsed, immersive “conference-as-performance.” We explore how costume, tactility, spatial design, and participation can stage feminist conflict as a bodily, negotiated situation. This project develops methods for holding, playing with and triggering feminist debate in a contemporary Norwegian context.

The project was carried out over two weeks at Hausmania in Oslo with artistic team Ellen Jerstad, Rosie Whiting, Muza de la Luz, Georgiana Dobre, Sulekha Ali Omar, Kristine Blir Raper, Tora Skår Midtbø and Ada Risberg, culminating in a test-performance at PODIUM on the 19th of June 2026. The preproject was supported by Kulturrådet.