Attack Warning

This was my first attempt at bridging the two creative worlds I found myself in: documentary and fine art. The inspiration was drawn from my experiences photographing the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as a direct response to a court case that was taking place at the time involving a female bodied protester who was charged with assaulting a male bodied officer. Her claim: self defence. She testified in court that while attempting to clear an area of protesters, the male bodied police officer lifted her from behind and in doing so grabbed her right breast. As a knee-jerk reaction, she inadvertently elbowed him in the eye. I began to think about the intimacy of protest situations, the expectations and roles played by both protesters and police, the hierarchy of power, and the fine line between violence and sex and pleasure and pain. When creating this piece I worked with footage from my archives, appropriated imagery from the internet, and backed it with “Two Hearts in ¾ Time”, a track by the infallible masters of sound collage – The Avalanches.