Olympia Nelson defends photo of her on Art Monthly coverArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment Rachel Hewitt
July 07, 2008 12:22pm
A CHILD whose nude photo appears on the cover of an art magazine says she is offended by Kevin Rudd's comments about the images.
Art Monthly magazine sparked fresh controversy over naked images of children by publishing an image of six-year-old Olympia Nelson on its July cover.
Click here to see the uncensored image
The pictures of Olympia, who is now 11, were taken in 2003 by her mother, Melbourne artist Polixeni Papapetrou.
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Speaking in Melbourne today, Olympia said the photographs were not child abuse.
“No, it’s not child abuse, in no way. I think that the picture that my mum took of me has nothing to do with being abused,” she told Sky News.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday he would pull funding for the magazine if it did not comply with new protocols over the depiction of children.
Olympia said today she was “really, really offended” by what Mr Rudd said about the picture.
She said the Prime Minister's comments about Bill Henson’s works, which caused a furore earlier this year, were “really, really rude”.
“For him to be talking about my picture, the picture with me in it, it doesn’t feel very good.”
The girl described the images of her as “really, really nice”, and said the ideas for some of the pictures inside the magazine were hers.
Art Monthly editor Maurice O'Riordan said he hoped the edition would "validate nudity and childhood as subjects for art'' and restore some "dignity to the debate".
The art critic for The Age, Robert Nelson, who is Papapetrou's husband and Olympia's father, said the family had no regrets and the photograph was a great work of art.
Professor Nelson, an Associate Dean in the Art and Design faculty at Monash University, said the images were made in good faith and conceived creatively.
He said the family was aware of the risks involved in such images, but “on the basis of no shortage of research”, they felt there was only “a very, very weak link” between child abuse and imagery.
“There's always some risk that someone will look at a picture and develop malevolent intentions but it's a very, very small risk,” Professor Nelson said.
“What we know of the research is that most cases of genuine child abuse occur in families. Olympia is growing up in a very secure family where that's not a risk.
“The risk from outside the family is very, very slight based on this research, so it seemed to us a perfectly legitimate thing to be producing images that are clearly artistically conceived. That seemed to us beautiful and sublime.
“We're kind of not surprised in a way, given what occurred with Bill Henson, that this blew up. People's concern is understandable but I think it that it should be informed"
"Seeing a child naked is not child abuse.”
Bravehearts executive director Hetty Johnston branded the publication of the photos in the magazine "sexual exploitation of children'', and said artistic merit should not override the rights and protection of a child.
"When those two things collide we have to err with the children, it has to be in the best interests of the children,'' Ms Johnston told the Nine Network today.
"I can't see in any circumstance where taking a photograph of a naked child is in the child's best interests.
"We need laws to make it clear, the laws are flaky and the laws aren't able to protect children."
Idiotic Australians and Naked Children
s to have complete hissy fits in recent months over the issue of images of naked children.
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