Guerilla Expo Red Light District
We had the opportunity to organise multiple expositions and demonstrations at the Amsterdam Red-Light District. Many people enjoyed the wonderful location and we split some of the rooms up in workspaces for artists. The studio was very content working there.
Traditionally, red lights were used as signs of brothels. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known appearance of the term "red light district" in print is in an 1894 article from The Sandusky Register, a newspaper in Sandusky, Ohio.
A widespread folk etymology claims that early railroad workers took red lanterns with them when they visited brothels so that their crew could find them in the event of an emergency. However, folklorist Barbara Mikkelson of snopes.com regards this as unfounded.
One of the many terms used for a red-light district in Japanese is akasen (赤線?), literally meaning "red-line." (This has independent origins from the same term in English). Japanese police drew a red line on maps to indicate the boundaries of legal red-light districts. In Japanese, the term aosen (青線?), literally meaning "blue-line," indicates a non-legal district, also exists.
In the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term sporting district became popular for legal red-light districts. Municipal governments typically defined such districts explicitly to contain and regulate prostitution.
Apocryphal information exists indicating that the red light was used inside the bedchambers of brothels to obscure and conceal from patrons the red blemishes of various venereal diseases upon the skin of the prostitutes.[citation needed] The red light seen from outside through the curtains became known as a sign of the activities within.
