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dc.contributor.authorWilken, Linda Cheryl
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-28T04:47:06Z
dc.date.available2025-04-28T04:47:06Z
dc.date.issued2024en_AU
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2123/33841
dc.description.abstractIn 2008 Australian artist Bill Henson exhibited a series of photographs that included a naked young girl. One image in particular created controversy and attracted the wrath of media, politicians, and a selection of the public. The police removed the artworks from public view and the then Australian Prime Minister called the photographs “revolting”. Henson’s art was labelled as child pornography. This incident led to changes to legislation that would have a significant impact on artists and contemporary art. The thesis posits that the way we see and encounter images of children is socially constructed and affected by our experiences of the world. Through interviews with artists and art industry representatives, the thesis argues that uncomfortable encounters between art and law have converged around images of children. Such images are now often viewed through a paedophilic lens by very different spectators, leading to the gradual erasure of children, and in particular their bodies, from Australian contemporary art. Further, through content analysis of 11 research images of children from art and advertising, and interviews about these images with legal practitioners, the thesis argues that there is no clear distinction between images of children in art and how child pornography is legally defined. While legal practitioners expressed differing opinions as to what may constitute child pornography, child abuse material or child exploitation material, they agreed that when all the circumstances of the production of the artworks were considered, none of the research images met the legal bar to warrant prosecution. Finally, the research argues that there is no clear answer to the question of when and how art becomes labelled as child pornography. Rather there is a complex and fraught web of politically charged, socio-legal, and aesthetic concerns that potentially place images of children in art, and those that produce them, within the orbit of the criminal justice system.en_AU
dc.language.isoenen_AU
dc.subjectArten_AU
dc.subjectLawen_AU
dc.subjectCriminologyen_AU
dc.subjectcensorshipen_AU
dc.subjectchild-imagesen_AU
dc.titleUncomfortable Encounters Between Art, Law, and Images of Childrenen_AU
dc.typeThesis
dc.type.thesisDoctor of Philosophyen_AU
dc.rights.otherThe author retains copyright of this thesis. It may only be used for the purposes of research and study. It must not be used for any other purposes and may not be transmitted or shared with others without prior permission.en_AU
usyd.facultySeS faculties schools::The University of Sydney Law Schoolen_AU
usyd.degreeDoctor of Philosophy Ph.D.en_AU
usyd.awardinginstThe University of Sydneyen_AU
usyd.advisorLee, Murray


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