Longtime i-D friend and collaborator Collier Schorr has called out the creative industry for being rife with sexual assault. After an outpouring of stories of sexual assault surfacing following the Harvey Weinstein allegations, the photographer makes a crucial point that this issue doesn’t begin and end there — the creative industries have a lot to answer for.
On Sunday, Schorr posted a still from the 1967 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Blow-Up, a film about a young London-based photographer who, in the still in question, is straddling a model from above. Over the image, Collier has scrawled a large “NO”. While the Instagram post is on Schorr’s studio’s private account, artnet reports that the caption in full reads:
“I can’t control what happens on other shoots but agents and magazines and designers can. We have an amazing creative industry and it [is] insane that women and children are being mauled humiliated and raped. Casting agents please don’t send young inexperienced girls to meet the male photographers you know are dangerous. And BOYS are being preyed upon as well, and it may be harder for them to speak out. And to the men everyone is talking about- FUCK YOU. Thanks @cameronrussell for making this not go away.”
The post comes after model Cameron Russell’s exposing Instagram account of anonymous sexual harassment stories within the modelling industry. It’s clear that this is a problem that runs much deeper than one specific industry – it’s everywhere.