DIRTY PICTURES

Sunday morning ritual: Vroege Vogels, a Dutch nature radio show. Yes, it's allegedly for the elderly. My spotless reputation can handle it.

This week they reported that 75% of all insects have disappeared in the last 30 years. I was dumbfounded. Still am. So naturally I did what we all do—went on with life as if nothing happened and drove to Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.

On the way I read my daily dose of nonsense ("Nonsense also makes sense," my partner always tells me) about KINO programming Dirty Movies. A Christian Union politician called it "typical waste of taxpayers' money." Someone should really explain to this guy about the birds and the bees. Especially now that 75% of them are gone.

Here's my theory: after years of neoliberal sexlessness—losing brothels while gaining human trafficking, sanitizing districts while pushing criminality underground—we've managed ourselves into extinction. Like those insects. Everything controlled, contained, disappearing quietly.

At Design Week I found the antidote: Melani De Luca, Joel Blanco Martinez, Jian Da Huang's Garden of Odour, Laura Mongone's Sexpression Tattoos, Fleur Hulleman's Porn for the Soul. Work that refuses to behave.

Time to stand on tables and hang from chandeliers again. Let's fucking save the planet.

Porn for the Soul by Fleur Hulleman DDW2017 (Photo by Ronald Smits)