BIKINI BOYCOTT - Leo 








When I was 10 years old I remember being sexually harassed for the first time. I was wearing a t-shirt with a bee on the front, and its eyes happened to be placed where my chest -- yes, because my boobs have just started growing and I didn’t even realize that I was turning into a woman ye -- was. A man passed by and pointing at me to make his friend look too, said ‘look at this bee, how swollen her eyes are’. I remember him being older than my dad and that confused me because my dad never said such things. I thought it was my fault for a few years, that I was dressing inappropriately.


That same year I bought my first bra, since after the bee incident I felt naked in anything I wore. It was a padded bra to make sure my nipples wouldn’t catch anyone's eyes again -- I was 10. Somehow this was such a big event that my dad told my grandfather. Later, on his 70th birthday, he toasted to my new bra raising glasses with my whole family, all his hunter friends and half of our village. A room full of men in their 70s cheering to a 10-years-old buying her first bra.





In the countryside sexual harassment is a joke -- ‘don’t take yourself so seriously’ -- it’s like your body belongs to the village so there’s no need to be greedy with it. In London I was introduced to a new level of sexual harassment. Before, I was saved by the fact that everyone knew each other so people knew they wouldn’t just get away with anything they did. But London’s anonymity turns you into fair game -- anyone can touch you, talk to you and always get away with it by simply disappearing.


Being at home for the past months now, totally isolated and safe I have been thinking a lot about social distancing and the safety it has created for women. 6 feet apart is enough to feel safe -- an invisible wall of comfort: the one thing that I hope will survive regardless of the outcome of this troubled time. Stay away from me, no-one needs to come close to me -- and no-one can.





Thanks to the safety and security of my home, which I haven’t felt in years in London, I finally started taking self-portraits just how I like them -- and without having to explain myself. My bikinis, made from glass, grass and ceramic are revealing and covering nothing in particular. They simply are the creative outcomes of my experimentations. I was pushing myself in directions I chose. I’m not scared of being exposed again and I don’t want to question myself like I had to when I was 10.