Pennie Key. Photo: © Verena Blok Pennie Key
Pennie Key (b. Athens) has a cross-disciplinary practice examining the body within systems of power, particularly around gender, labour and sexuality. Her research draws from her personal experiences, embodied knowledge gained through practising martial arts and various forms of sex work, as well as queerness and motherhood. These experiences shape how she understands desire, structured and unstructured play, and the politics of physical and social space.
Bringing people together is central to her work. She organises physical workshops and workouts, hosts a monthly film night on sex worker representations, and initiated Artist Anonymous, a series of meetings that provide space to discuss rejection, burnout, financial struggle and precarity openly. A sincere effort to address what professional contexts typically keep hidden.
Pennie received her MFA from Goldsmiths (2016) and was a Rijksakademie resident (2020-2022). She has received support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (ARTWORKS 2021), Mondriaan Fund (2023-2026) and Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. Recent exhibitions include Gfzk Leipzig, Künstlerhaus Dortmund and MoMa Thessaloniki, alongside project spaces across the UK, Belgium and Mexico.
Pennie is part of the 2026 Framer Framed x UvA Political Science fellowship programme.
Her proposal examines the regulation of bodies, labour, and desire within De Wallen. Since 2020, she has inhabited the neighbourhood, initially observing its urban choreography from her Oude Kerk apartment. She remains drawn to the area as a site where normative sexuality operates within a narrow spectrum, structured around economies of consumption and extraction. From her position as an artist and a sex worker, she investigates how these systems shape the performance of masculinities, the circulation of desire, and questions of spatial belonging.
