Another empowering image courtesy of the fashion industry

 dario salamone/the ones 2 watch

  

This one is by photographer Dario Salamone, from an editorial story published in The Ones To Watch. That's the emerging talent website operated by models.com, but which was founded and continues to be edited by Australian Rosie Daly (MDC's New Faces editor). The model is Russian Alonya Zubakina and according to the accompanying notes, the shoot – titled “Unholy Wood” - is “A story shot on film about the darkness of the sacred and the sublime of nature, inspired by the power of natural light, relics, votives and Alena’s [sic] beauty". Coincidentally, its publication comes at a time when the practice of stoning women once again finds itself under the western spotlight. 

The image is also somewhat reminiscent of the 1969 'Table' sculpture by British pop artist Allen Jones (below), which depicts a lingerie-clad woman kneeling on all fours, with a sheet of glass on her back. 

The sculpture and others in the same series went down well with feminists at the time. Not to mention Stanley Kubrick, who ripped it off for one scene of his 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, after Jones declined to provide his artworks for nix. 

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toni/wikimedia