Michal Recommends:
Help End Political Abuse With Art
Strength and dignity are her clothing...
Proverbs 31:25
On Monday, I arrived in Europe. By Wednesday I had bought a car. By Friday I had met the woman who a few months later would end up having travelling 6,000 miles across Europe with me.
As an artist, from the beginning of my adult career, my work had been devoted to the problem of body acceptance, a goal that I would later learn was shared by a whole community of people called naturists, a humble portion of which I discovered residing in Poland, a country whose cultural conservatism does not lend itself readily to forward thinking. One of those forward-thinking Polish naturists happened to be Margo.
I had grown up in America. Land of opportunity. I came of age in the booming 90s when everything was possible. She had grown up in Poland. She had come of age at a time when the Soviets were making sure that there wasn't even anything to eat in the country. I couldn't even properly translate the word "opportunity" into Polish.
I've never gone hungry without deserving it. I've never been systemically beaten by a parent. I've never been fondled by a priest. That doesn't mean I can't listen to somebody who has had to experience such abuse and it doesn't mean I can't try to understand. Margo and I traveled 6,000 miles together. We slept in the same tent. We had to listen to each other. A person shouldn't need 6,000 miles to do it. We should be able to listen to each other just because we want to. We should've been taught to do it. If we haven't been taught, we should be learning how to do it and learning fast.
6,000 miles across Europe with a complete stranger
Day 11
7/30/2011
⛹ 10༛♊25/24♀
Kärntner Lichtbund
Keutschach, Austria
THE DISAPPEARING WOMAN, THE DISAPPEARING MAN...
a collection of modern art prints and posters
During our trip across Europe, Margo very bravely opened up to me and to the camera. It was a difficult thing to do considering the scars that she carries. I wanted to share with the world her often joyful, often sad, often angry but always liberating experience except that the Internet is full of pictures of naked women and men and full of trolls who abuse them.
I realized that what I really need to point out is not the openness that Margo and I cultivated between ourselves, but the darkness that continues to surround us. When I censor nudity, I do so in a way that does not compromise the integrity of the human body. In censoring the photographs that Margo and I took during our trip, I was quick to notice that in those pictures where Margo was at her most open, at her most unguarded and most relaxed, in a word, when she was herself and basking in the sun I was forced to blacken her completely.
Why does our society drive people into darkness? Why can we not accept ourselves as we are? Why can we not accept our bodies? Have we truly become eunuchs? Or are we capable of defying the sickness that pits us against each other? Together we could conquer the devils that abuse us.
Whether you enjoy being nude or not, whether you've been photographed nude or not, but especially if, for you, like for Margo, it's something you never thought you would do, consider submitting your own photograph to be published in a censored manner as a form of protest against the ubiquitous presence of the human body on the internet, naked or not, that is published and duplicated ad infinitum without context and without regard for the identity or the needs of the individual being depicted.
