I've often been active on the anti-censorship front, taking part in events about censorship in literature and film with lectures and installations.
The following images relate to an idea originally developed as an open-air installation during an anti-censorship event in Italy.
The installation consisted in a workshop during which a few paper dresses were created.
Extracts of banned books and novels were incorporated in the dresses that were then partially burnt in the open air on a beach (NB do not attempt to repeat the experiment in an enclosed area...)
The project was entitled "Swinging Censorship Dresses" and tackled the theme of censorship through fashion and literature in the 60s.
This decade evokes indeed memories of liberation, sexual revolution, mini-skirts and space age discoveries. Yet the 60s weren't only about free love and flower power utopianism.
The “Swinging Censorship Dress” in these images - a tunic dress in 60s style in two different materials, vinyl and paper (evoking the more experimental materials employed by fashion designers such as André Courrèges, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin) - is a physical representation of cultural censorship in the 60s.
The front of the dress features the original image printed on the posters and on the programme of the “Gala Evening Concerning Depravity and Corruption” organised in London in the late 60s.
The back of the dress includes extracts from the following books and essays:
- Cain’s Book (1960) by Alexander Trocchi;- Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1960) by D. H. Lawrence;
- “The Future of the Novel” (1962), Alexander Trocchi’s speech at the Edinburgh Writer’s Conference;
- “Censorship and Virtue”, essay, Alexander Trocchi;
-“Lessons for Boys & Girls” (1963), poem, by Alexander Trocchi;
- Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr (1964);
- “What it’s all about” (1968), essay by Stuart Hood, Chairman of the Defence of Literature and the Arts Society;
- Quotes from the film The Girl on the Motorcycle (1968) by Jeff Cardiff taken from the novel La Motocyclette by André Pieyre de Mandiargues;
- Sir Cyril Black (1968) by Benjamin Grimm;
- Eden Eden Eden (1969) by Pierre Guyotat.
Some of the above-mentioned books/films were banned, others were involved in trials, while the poems, essays and speeches included focused on themes such as censorship and obscenity and questioned the right of the censors and of the authorities to impose their standards and judgements on society.
Stained, burnt and soaked in water, the dress represents what the censors did to specific texts, films and authors.
Despite what it went through, the dress is still standing, looking fashionable and representing a badge of honour, a symbol of all the anti-censorship battles carried out by all those dissenters who fought for their rights to see, hear, read and wear what they like.
Photo shoot in collaboration with the Mifreki Team.
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