Ulla Deventer started an intense artistic research into the world of prostitution. She worked in cities such as Brussels, Paris, Athens and Accra, Ghana.
The main motivation for this research project is to see how art can reveal new perspectives on a cliché dominated topic of with prostitution is an example, thereby tackling the stigma that is attached to it. With the project, Deventer wants to develop an alternative visual language that goes beyond the traditional documentary format, one that it is based on close interpersonal relationships and interactions with the subjects.
An important reference is the work of sociologists J. Kleinman and J.W. Schneider, who criticize the academic research for its often narrow and biased vision. Many social scientists who study stigma do so from theories that are uninformed by the lived experience of the people that encounter social stigma on a day-to-day basis.