What the Earth Knows: Laura LeMoon

What The Earth Knows: Laura LeMoon
March 14th - April 6th, 2025
All pieces will be ready to ship / pickup starting April 7th. 

The Green River Killer, otherwise known as Gary Ridgway, is a serial murderer that mostly targeted people in the sex trade between 1982-1999, until his arrest and conviction in 2001. He is known as saying, when asked why he targeted prostitutes, it was because “no one cares about prostitutes.” A significant number of Ridgway’s victims were teenage runaways forced into prostitution, and adult female sex workers working the Seattle area's “tracks.”

This photography series was originally 49 photos, pared down to 19 here in this first ever solo exhibition at Ghost Gallery in Seattle. The photos are each of the 49 locations where bodies were either found or where a victim of the Green River Killer was last seen alive. These images are portraits in negative space, not merely images of landscapes. 

This project intends to give voices to those who have been silenced by violence against people in the sex trade. The hatred against us is overwhelming, including hatred by society that doesn’t want us in it, the extortion from police, or the beatings, robbings, rapings that seem to come from everyone from strangers, to violence from law enforcement, to wannabe pimps, to tricks. The hatred is palpable from our hostile criminal “justice” system and our hostile medical system, to the federal and state governments that pass laws to annihilate us, to partners and family members who are disgusted and ashamed of us. Gary Ridgway is an amalgamation of all the immense hatred from society that we as sex workers and sex trafficking survivors face everyday. And we will not remain invisible for your comfort anymore.