"Our Lives, Our Space: Views of Women in a Red-Light District" Runs March 18-23 at Pitt's Frick Fine Arts Gallery

PITTSBURGH-A free public exhibition of photographs of one of the oldest red-light districts in South Korea will run March 18-23 in the University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Building Gallery, 650 Schenley Dr., Oakland.

Titled "Our Lives, Our Space: Views of Women in a Red-Light District, Korea," the exhibition opens at 3 p.m. March 18 and includes 40 photographs taken by women who worked in the sex trade in the Yongsan red-light district of Seoul, South Korea, some for as long as 40 years.

At 4 p.m. March 18, Sealing Cheng, assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Wellesley College and one of the project's organizers, will deliver a free lecture. Cheng, an anthropologist, researches issues pertaining to sexuality, prostitution, migration, trafficking, and human rights.

In South Korea, women in prostitution have remained largely invisible, and their voices rarely heard in the decision-making process of national and local policies that directly impact their lives. Organizers say "Our Lives, Our Space" is a way for these women to record their own history through visual imagery.

The exhibition's cosponsors include Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, Asian Studies Center, Women's Studies Program, and the Departments of Anthropology, Studio Arts, and the History of Art and Architecture.

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