Maya

22 x 29.5 cm
Found magazine clipping, photograph, black ink, graphite, red thread, alu tape

Note: The area behind Maya is cut out and the edges of the black rectangular shape on the left side are covered in metallic tape which doesn't really come through here in the scan.

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I can honestly say I have never lived so centrally located as I do now. I am close to all forms of public transportation (even though they are all on strike right now...ugh) cafes, bars, restaurants, book stores, grocery stores and oh yeah! brothels. In fact I live above one called Maya (formerly known as Jasmine). Because I live on the 4th floor and the brothel is on the ground floor I don't hear anything (unlike my unlucky friend S. who also lived above a illegal short-term brothel and heard a client growling like a tiger one night) but I do see the occasional client (who have ranged in age from 17 to 70). Actually I park my bike in front of the blackened windows when I come home.

Fortunately 'my' neighborhood brothel is quite tame. There is so much sex trafficking that happens between Eastern Europe and Asia, to Western Europe it is terrible. But prostitution is legal in Germany. Prostitutes have to pay income taxes and even have to charge VAT for their services, to be paid to the tax office....Berlin has initiated a system where prostitutes have to pay their taxes in advance, a set amount per day, to be collected and submitted by the brothel owners...Berlin charges 30 Euros. All of that said I can't help but wonder who and what the women's stories are.