I came across this photo project yesterday 1000 Bodies – it’s several years old now. I flicked through the images of the naked participants with my partner – steadily, click, click, click like a slow, jerky animation.
1000 people, different genders and shapes and sizes – mostly younger, mostly white, mostly not visibly disabled (not intended as a criticism, it’s an observation). Standing, posing, sitting, stretching – caught in a moment.
Their nudity being less of interest than their pose and their presence. We noticed some parts of their bodies – remarking at bald shaven vaginas and the one man with an erection. Mostly, we were quiet and didn’t remark at all – the silently passing flicker of bodies, not that relevant to us, everything to those people.
The question always posed is why is nudity an issue, those body parts special, wrong etc. An answer is usually that they are sexual, and somehow that explains it. But what’s wrong with sex?
Phil Pool - Art and Protest 