I thought I should explain how I got into porn.

Let’s start in 2008. The economy of the world had just crashed and I was destitute. Every art endowment had gone down with Madoff’s pyramid scheme and there was zero money in the arts. My schizophrenic assistant had turned to selling Adderall to buy our morning coffee.

‘How do you fund a non-profit?’ a student asked after my talk at the NYU art school.

‘You don’t. It’s sex and drugs at this point,’ I said. ‘That’s what it’s come down to.’

I started out with drugs. Moved to California and opened a non-profit medical marijuana farm as a funding engine for the arts. It was a good model.

Image credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Drugs, check ✔️

Flash forward to today.

As you may have heard, I’m trying to save the forest. I’ve had it with the destruction of ancient ecosystems, so I decided four years ago to apply all my energy towards protecting old-growth forests.

I’d seen enough of the forest wars to understand I wouldn’t get anywhere yelling at people.¹ It’s also just uncool. So I decided to save the forest with the loggers.

My idea was simple: let’s create a real-life fairytale in which ‘the villains’ become ‘the heroes’, and the loggers save the forest. A kind of Prince Charming scenario.

What I didn’t anticipate is how easily we slip from one role into another. At times the greens have been the villains (or at least massive pains in the asses) and the loggers have been the heroes.

Still, the crux of the project was that the people cutting the trees down would protect them. It sounded like an absurd concept, but why not? I’m into Dada.

The critical thing is to be honest. Diplomacy is trust and love. ‘I want you to save the forest,’ I told my sawmiller friends. I have always been transparent.

In 2023 we hosted the Forest Congress, a gathering of 130 leaders from all sides of the forest wars. For the first time / by some kind of miracle, environmentalists and loggers moved past generational hatred and actually listened to each other. Although there was a hell of a lot they disagreed on, they agreed for the most part that we should save old-growth forests.² A lot of this was thanks to tequila, a lot to performance art. Aboriginal leadership acted as a voice of reason, soothing tensions between the two parties, and bringing us back to our focus: a functional peace. The forest. Things greater than ourselves.

Eventually we landed on a vision statement that called for an end to old-growth logging, while supporting good native forest practices.

Still there were practicalities (jobs) to consider, and a hell of a lot of fear and cultural identity issues. A year and many meetings later we were still destroying old-growth forests. So in late 2025, I moved into the Styx Valley and set up residence in a mossy wonderland known as TN050G. It was due for destruction (or harvest, depending on your preferred dialect).

Image Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford

My residence was more Waldorf Astoria than protest camp, with crystal chandeliers and tuxedoed butler service—partly because I am spoiled, and partly because it was a performance piece intended to sit as far from a traditional protest camp as possible, so as not to ruffle the feathers of the public logging company (STT), who really didn't want me there and definitely didn’t know what to do with me.

I got around, pouring champagne (or having it poured for me by my butler) in neighbouring forests TN34G and TN62G as well, ancient forests of stunning beauty, the latter of which is known as Puralia’s Stand, where Palawa leader Uncle Jim was arrested. Half of that coupe had already been felled but the other was still standing. It was profound to experience that liminal space between realities, at the edge of what was possible.

I wasn’t always welcome with the forest protestors. They didn’t understand my theatre. They were camped out in Puralia’s Stand defending it, and I was freaking them out. I’d prance in wearing high heels and a gown. On the day the machines were to start, I walked in with logging baron Graeme Elphinstone, the unofficial king of forestry in Tasmania. The logging company paused the machines for his visit. The protest camp was … tense.³

‘I’d like to have a beer with those kids,’ Graeme said chirpily as we walked through their camp.

I wasn’t sure the feeling was mutual: ‘… maybe some mushrooms,’ I said. ‘That could be healing.’

Kindness goes a long way, and the logging company was gracious. Although my diplomatic residence presented them with a problem, they still shared the gate key and allowed me to host, albeit unpermitted, a Forest Congress.

A week before the event everyone boycotted it—greens and industry. Both sides believed I represented the other side’s interests. I suppose one could take that as a compliment—evidence of balance—if it didn’t represent a total diplomatic meltdown! My nerves were a wreck.

‘Fuck it, I’ll just build a table in the forest with effigies and, too bad, they’re coming—like it or not.’ The effigies and I will conduct the congress and sign a damn forest accord!

And then I had a thought. Let the women handle it. Bring in the big guns. I invited the wives and daughters of the loggers, and the women of industry and environmentalism. I invited their mothers. And I hosted a Ladies Lounge in the forest (male butlers included). I invited Miss Kaninna and her mother, Aboriginal leader Ruth Langford. Let the women handle it. Just women, hot man servants,⁴ and the forest.

On the eve of the congress, against every fibre of his better judgement, or maybe because a woman asked nicely, the forestry minister gave the logging body permission to attend. This untied the hands of all the other organisations who were terrified of pissing him off.

It was a momentous meeting. People took enormous leaps in shared understanding, and as a result, the forests were protected. The loggers decided to take them off the chopping block, and the sawmillers gave their blessing (even if they didn’t entirely like it). ‘I think we should kick the can down the road as an act of good faith,’ said a sawmiller, inspired by an environmentalist who’d said he’d abandon the party line of ‘End All Native Logging’ if industry agreed to protect old-growth forests. Everyone gave something to a purpose larger than themselves.

A few weeks later I received the bill. It was bad. Well, it’s not even close to the price of a Picasso, I justified to myself. And one hectare of ancient forest is worth way more than a Picasso!⁵ Still, it was worse than the real Waldorf Astoria. ‘Now I know why forest protestors camp,’ I told the producer.

Uh-oh, I’m in trouble with my husband. That was my first sane thought. He was building the Mona library so it was a bad time for overspending. And then I had a realisation: Wait, none of these funds went to forest workers. Why didn’t I hire them?!

I called a logging contractor, a man deeply involved in the congress. ‘You know, you generously protected those forests, even at a loss to your business. My team is getting leeches and flat tyres and we have no idea how to operate in the forest. It would be so much better if we had your crew. How would you feel about working with us next time?’

‘We’d love to.’

I learnt that a contracting crew makes approximately $70,000 clear-felling a coupe (+ / - 25 hectares of forest), 35k in wages and 35k in overhead.

‘If your guys work the same hours and command the same (or better) wages, would you be willing to build a boardwalk / art project in an old-growth forest you’re scheduled to cut down?’

He said, ‘Imagine the value to my community of that forest over time if we build something cool in it instead of cutting it down (and waiting eighty years for it to regenerate).’

I have been so moved by the openness and generosity of forest workers, and the thoughtfulness I’ve encountered through listening.

***

Further up north a few giant trees were being trucked into a sawmill. The image went viral on environmental channels. ‘Single log riders’ are trees that fill an entire logging truck. I called the sawmiller and asked if I could buy one.

Image credit: Steven Pearce

‘Yeah.’

‘Unmilled?’

‘Uh-huh, what would that cost?’

‘About 5 or 6k.’

The next question of course was, can I buy the tree in the ground? But how to frame such a delicate question. Nobody likes environmentalists in those parts. Understandably, people are protective of their livelihoods. And there are real potential repercussions.

Still, the world is market-driven, so presented without hubris or rudeness, it’s a reasonable request. We discussed it over scallops (and lobster, and abalone—I love Mersey’s Seafood, Stanley ❤️). The answer is: it’s complicated, but not impossible.

Back to porn.

You know the phrase ‘safe for work’? It refers to keeping things clean on your work computer. Well, my team doesn’t know about that. They had to find the talent.

A couple of months later twenty porn stars were filming in an ancient fern forest in Tasmania. We filmed a furries orgy, a glory hole, a shibari act, a dominatrix … The dom did her performance in a sawmill.

‘Okay, here’s my idea, I’ll walk into the sawmill, find a worker, ask him his secret fantasy, and fuck him up the ass.’

‘Um, I’m not sure how that will go down.’

I called the sawmiller, ‘So … how much do you want to know?’

‘As little as possible. Probably nothing.’

I went back to the dom. ‘Okay, how about this: you are a sexy sawmiller, you find a forest protester chained to your equipment (in a “Protect Native Forests” t-shirt). You say, “You dirty hippie, you love being chained up, don’t you?” Then you do your thing to him.’ [Note: all the performers are professionals.] That scenario felt more culturally sensitive, and kinder to our hosts.

‘But all my clients are tradies,’ said Malaya, the glory hole. ‘It’s important to give them permission to lose control.’

‘Yes, men are tired of being in charge all the time. It’s good for them to let go,’ said the dom. I heard her point—if hippies are getting fucked up the ass, that may stigmatise it for an industry worker. It has all been very educational.

What really moves me is that the sawmillers, whose practices I am questioning, allowed me to film in their sawmills. It’s incredibly generous and trusting. ‘When I say no logger left behind, I really mean it,’ I told one. ‘We’re here to find a model that works.’

I actually care about forest workers and their communities. A plan that doesn't include them is unethical. And it’s anathema to the concept of ecology. Doesn’t an ecosystem include everyone, plant, animal, and human? ‘We are all part of a relational ecosystem,’ Uncle Jim says.

‘Have you heard of Fuck for Forests?’ the Deputy Mayor of Sydney asked when I told her about the project. We were meeting about a different artwork, 7001 Seeds, where female artists steal Joseph Beuys’s seeds and propagate them around the city. It’s a bit rapey, but ultimately an urban greening project.⁶

‘Fuck for Forests?’ It turned out I wasn’t the first to come up with this novel funding engine. Fuck for Forests saved a lot of rainforest in Central and South America in the mid 2000s.

‘Okay, but why porn?’ the Mona leadership asked when I told them about the project. Um, well … let’s try to unpack this.

First, I relate to sex work because I am the wife of a rich man. Of course / believe it or not, David likes me for my brains. But he really likes me for my body. I like him for his brains and his body and his money—which he shares with me if (?) / because (?) / at the same time (?) that I share my body. So we joke / not really joke that I’m a high-paid prostitute. Given his support for my philanthropic projects (24 Carrot, Material Institute, the Forest Congress), he calculated that I cost $26,000 a fuck—very high pay. Maybe that’s why, when presented with a funding issue, my mind immediately turned to porn.

Or maybe I’ve been interested in OnlyFans for a long time, as a tool of female empowerment. I like that it cuts out the middleman (pimp).

In my twenties, most of my girlfriends were strippers. All of them were artists. Some turned stripping into art. One wore a bunny head and carried a purse. Trent Reznor was obsessed with her and begged her to take off her bunny head. She never did. Stripping allowed her to pursue her art with very few working hours (thanks Trent), affording her a really nice lifestyle in New Orleans, a house, and an art studio. Maybe that’s why I turned to porn.

Or maybe it's the healing power of the divine feminine, the role the sex goddess has played in the Forest Congress. Everyone loves Betty Grumble—left, right, logger, environmentalist.⁷ Sex goddesses help bring opposing sides together. Feminine energy is powerful.

Maybe it’s a feminist criticism of the lack of problem solving by the patriarchy. You can’t fix it, so we will!

Or it’s homeopathic: similia similibus curentur. Treat like with like. Take male hunger, the conquering energy that landed us here in the first place, and transmute it into healing energy (men buy porn and protect the old-growth forest). Sometimes the same men who buy the porn are the men who destroy the forest, so they solve the problem themselves. The master’s tools dismantle the master’s house. Except, we’re not demolishing anything. We’re just renovating it. Into a beautiful mansion, with love.

I love male energy. It’s natural—and hot. It gets the job done. It just needs a little softening sometimes.

Maybe I like that porn is taboo. I’ve always liked going into the problem, exploring and destigmatising and breathing light into it. I like transforming darkness. And ‘darkness’ is usually just the unfamiliar.

Art opens things up. It integrates the ‘other’, and I’m into that.

Maybe it’s because I studied cultural anthropology. I am infinitely interested in subcultures. My foray into the world of porn has been fascinating, enlightening and educational. Porn stars I’ve met are kind, brilliant, empowered people. It’s been incredible to cum [sic] to know them.

Maybe porn is the perfect Trojan horse. It’s so weird / unexpected / funny that it slips past the gatekeepers. It helps people relax. It inspires them to say yes when they’d otherwise hold back.

Maybe I like the idea that porn saves the day.

Porn pays.

And that’s all I have to say for myself.

Thank you and I’m (not) sorry.

Kirsha

1. I tried blowing up the salmon industry with a WWII bomber on Instagram and it got me nowhere.

2. Old-growth forests, as defined in the Forest Congress vision statement, are forests that have never been industrially felled.

3. Graeme Elphinstone and his artist wife Sylvia were instrumental to that forest’s protection.

4. One butler was a protester for Bob Brown. I’d met him at Puralia’s Stand.

5. My Picassos notwithstanding.

6. This artwork has us stealing Moreton Bay fig seeds from the tree Beuys planted outside the Art Gallery of New South Wales after 7000 Oaks, the urban greening artwork he did in Kassel for Documenta, 1982. 7001 Seeds is an reenactment / upgrade performed by female artists (girls are better than Beuys). Anyway, it’s only his seed we’re stealing—he’s dead.

7. The original Forest Congress included a commissioned performance piece by Narcissister. And Betty Grumble has performed for the Congress since day one.