Our Witches

Nudes in art history are women, naked for the viewer. Naked is for the person themselves. These women are naked because that is their body, the way they live, as animals with the earth. Let us strip the sex and desire from nudity and challenge this religious and conservative British notion of being embarrassed by the body or associating it with sex and filth. Let us challenge the idea that naked means erotic, means desire, means whore, means for men’s eyes. In addition to questioning our connotations with nudity, the nakedness is a tool to dismantle our notion of human superiority. Western world thinkers and scientists consider humans to be the most sentient, intelligent beings, denying other living things personhood. Because fungi do not have eyes to see, ears to hear, mouths to speak, hands to touch they are considered less and I want to break this assumption down. Even when discussing animals, we put more emphasis on animals like octopus and pigs because they are more “emotionally intelligent” than others, as if this makes other living beings less important. We too are animals of this earth, we are just like the waters, the fungi, the animals we love. I want to bring us off the “top” of the pyramid, and back to the ground, only to look around and see that other living beings are not so different from ourselves.