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Date Published: 01/08/2022

ARCHIVED - Campaign flop: UK models furious as Spain alters their images for body awareness crusade

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The ‘Summer is ours too’ campaign in Spain has used photos and even edited them without permission

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Campaign flop: UK models furious as Spain alters their images for body awareness crusade

A movement launched by the Ministry of Equality in Spain to promote inclusion and body confidence has seriously backfired, with almost everyone depicted on the campaign poster publicly slamming the government for using their images without consent, and worse, heavily editing them.

The colourful promotional image shows women of all different ages, ethnicities, shapes and sizes hitting the beach under the slogan “Summer is ours too” and aims to encourage people to be confident in their appearance.

“All bodies are beach bodies,” social rights minister Ione Belarra said. “All bodies are valid and we have the right to enjoy life as we are, without guilt or shame. Summer is for everyone!”

Unfortunately, the well-meaning campaign has received mostly backlash and last week, British model Sian Green-Lord was left “literally shaking” when she discovered her image had been used in the poster without her permission. The utter irony is that the Brit has had a prosthetic leg since being hit by a New York taxi back in 2013, and in a campaign that promotes inclusion, this has been airbrushed out.

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“I don’t even know how to even explain the amount of anger that I’m feeling right now… I’m literally shaking, I’m so angry,” Ms Green-Lord said.

“It’s one thing using my image without my permission, but it’s another thing editing my body, my body with my prosthetic leg … I don’t even know what to say but it’s beyond wrong.”

Another model from the UK, Nyome Nicholas-Williams, was also featured in the campaign without her permission, as was double mastectomy model Juliet FitzPatrick, who was depicted topless, but with one breast.

Ms FitzPatrick was furious that her face had been superimposed on the body of a woman with one breast and has demanded an explanation from the Ministry.

Following the controversy, the illustrator of the poster, Arte Mapache, issued a public apologies to the models on Twitter.

“After the justified controversy surrounding the image rights of the illustration, I have considered that the best way to alleviate the damage that may have arisen from my conduct is to distribute the benefits derived from this work equally among the protagonists of the poster,” the artist wrote.

Image: Ministerio de Igualdad

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