BABY OIL AND ICE : Julie Cook

Baby Oil and Ice
In the rising era of American Lap dancing clubs and the gradual disappearance of historical London strip pubs, this work formed part of a collaborative book project (The Do-Not Press 2002), with Sarah Ainslie and Lara Clifton, documenting the traditional striptease pubs in East London in the late 1990s. The book also includes interviews, writing, poems and stories written by strippers in the industry, and some of its customers and employees. The empty interiors show only the signs of what happens in these spaces. The close-ups of the dancers themselves present the women as sexual performers and the voyeurism that is intrinsic to these spaces.

: Ye Olde Axe