PROVOCATIVE PARTY PHOTOS
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A controversial party photographer, known for taking provocative photos of topless women being doused in champagne, has had yet another Canadian gig cancelled after backlash erupted online, this time in Vancouver.
New York’s Kirill Bichutsky, who goes by the name Kirill Was Here and the “slut whisperer,” was scheduled to appear at a Feb. 27 event at Fortune Sound Club.
Bichutsky describes himself as someone “travelling the world throwing parties (and) taking pictures.” He posts his photos — many of half-naked women who appear to be intoxicated — to his website and social-media channels.
While Bichutsky has more than 915,000 followers on Instagram, his work has stirred up controversy before and led to the cancellation of Canadian gigs, including one in Halifax in April 2015 and another in Ontario in October 2015. While an event in St. John’s, N.L., went ahead last fall, it sparked protests and community concerns.
Those same concerns were raised Wednesday in Vancouver. The conversation was started by Good Night Out Vancouver, a group that works with local venues, including Fortune Sound Club, to make the city’s nightlife a safer place for women and the LGBTQ community.
“His whole sort of career is built around the pornification (of women) and using women as props,” said Stacey Forrester, the group’s co-founder.
While Forrester views Bichutsky’s work as “problematic,” her issue wasn’t about what he does, but rather where the event was happening.
Fortune Sound Club was one of the first venues Good Night Out Vancouver worked with to help train staff on how to handle sexual-assault complaints and create a safer place for women and the queer community.
“If you’re committing to making a safer space and value women’s roles, it’s really contradictory to then have an act whose whole appeal relies on the pornification of ... possibly intoxicated women,” said Forrester.
Blueprint, the hospitality management company for Fortune Sound Club, responded to concerns Thursday by cancelling the event.
“His stance on a number of issues ... does not fit our company’s, our city’s or Canadian values,” a statement on the now-cancelled event’s Facebook page reads. “We ... will not be allowing this individual to appear at any venue we own or where we have an ownership stake — now or in the future.”
However, Bichutsky plans to organize another party “with a venue that respects a woman’s decision to do whatever she wants with her body.” He told The Province that cancelling the event is “only hurting the people that wanted to go.”
He said the majority of his partygoers are women. “There’s no one holding a gun to anyone’s head ... you know where you’re going, you’re buying a ticket.
“You’re not going to a museum, you’re going to a nightclub ... there’s nothing crazy that happens at my parties that doesn’t happen somewhere else.”