Using images without permission, illustration used photoshop and altered model bodies
A campaign by the Instituto de Las Mujeres, linked to the Spanish Ministry of Equality, designed to encourage and celebrate the diversity of bodies on the beach, ended up having a very bad effect. This is because the models portrayed in the piece’s illustration stated that the images were removed from their social networks without permission to use them. Baptized as “O Vero Also Ours”, the action was launched last Wednesday (27).
The case got even worse contours because of the use of photoshop and edits that were made. The face of Juliet FitzPatrick, who had a mastectomy on both breasts, is on the body of another woman. Sian Green-Lord, who was in an accident in 2013 and had one leg amputated, pictured with her edited prosthesis. In the advertising piece, she appears on the left and wearing a floral mai. Fitz Patrick is in the background, one of the temples on his lower lip.
I don’t even know how to explain how angry I am right now. I’m literally shaking, I’m so angry. It’s one thing to use my image without my permission, but another to edit my body, my body with my prosthetic leg I don’t even know what to say, but it’s so wrong, wrote Green-Lord.
At the launch of the campaign, the institute said in a press release that the strategy was a response to fatphobia, hatred and questioning of non-normative bodies, particularly those of women, something that is more prevalent in the summer.
The work of the Spanish artist Arte Mapache who, with the repercussion of the case, apologized for the use of the images, and said he wanted to honor the models that today inspire many people.
“Given the justified controversy over the image rights in the illustration, I decided that the best way to repair the damage that may have resulted from my actions is to split the money I received for the work and give equal shares to the people in the poster,” he said.
Neither the Ministry of Equality nor the Instituto de Las Mujeres has commented on the case. In social networks, users and models, such as Nyome Nicholas-Williams, continue to demand positioning and attitudes so that body positive actions are implemented properly.
(With information from The Guardian).
