Photography on trial: the accusation of indecency Beauty and Menace/Sublime Peril
Access Status
Open access
Authors
Petrillo, Concetta
Date
2020Supervisor
Kit Messham-Muir
Toni Wilkinson
Type
Thesis
Award
PhD
Metadata
Show full item recordFaculty
Humanities
School
School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry
Collection
Abstract
This exegesis contextualises and critically examines my creative practice which has children as its subject matter. It describes my prosecution under the old Censorship Act of 1996 and the Criminal Code that was in effect at the time for taking photographs of my naked and semi-naked children, which was later dismissed by a court of law. Autoethnography is used to locate the chronology and social and cultural circumstances of my practice during and after that event, and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on habitus and field are used as a way of understanding how the socio-juridical field impacted on my creative habitus, and how my creative habitus could be enriched.