Hardly any great surprise here:
An investigation by the Victorian Education Department has cleared the principal who allowed artist Bill Henson to scout St Kilda Park Primary School for talent of any wrongdoing.
The State Government is also refusing to ban Henson from future playground visits.
The question that needs to be asked now is why John Brumby was so quick to issue the now apparently customary and/or compulsory loud condemn, before he had even initiated an investigation. Either Brumby was insincere and joining the populist outrage crew because, hey, that’s what all pollies apparently do, or his judgement on matters pertaining to schools sucks when it comes to the results of a professional investigation and assessment of the circumstances. Either way, it’s a bad look. And either way, it raises the question of prejudging an inquiry Brumby himself called for. Not a particularly distinguished chapter in the story of Victorian governance and politics, I’d suggest.
Related posts: The extensive archive of posts on Henson and discussion on LP can be accessed here.
Yes, as it works out the principal was operating within Education Departmnt guidelines. So, what happens now? do the guidelines get changes? The principal has also said that shw qouldn’t say ‘yes’ if he asked again. I think this is a shame, but you can’t blame principals if they become paranoid now.
“But ultimately that is a judgment we leave to a professional person.”
To do otherwise would mean the devolution ideology of the last decades would be dead. Be interesting to see if this reaffirmation of local decision making has any effects on the education ‘solutions’ offered by Gillard et al.
Nevertheless, Fine is spot on. Self censorship will be the order of the day.
Hmm. I must say that I’d be unimpressed if my son’s school allowed someone in to “scout talent” in the playground, whether for photography or a film or whatever. A public school is there to educate children, not to provide a mine of beauty for someone else to profit from. It would be a different matter if the artist was on the premises for an educational purpose and happened to see an ideal model. But a straightforward model search has a lot in common with prospecting in a national park.
Chookie, I can understand why a parent would feel like that. What I object to in this episode in the inference that Henson is some sort of paedophile and the principal was being remiss. When this stuff has been happening for years. Not that I’m saying that your making that inference.
You mean implication
No, I’m not implying that Henson is a paedophile. But were the parents of the children asked for permission before their children were looked-at? How would it be different if a advertising exec came around to look for kids to put in a commercial? And frankly, where were the principal’s brains?
Why couldn’t she have meant inference? Works for me.
Chookie, I meant the inference in a general way, not that you were personally doing that. I’m inferring from what other people are implying.
“before their children were looked-at?”
But surely we all get “looked at” all the time. Really I can’t see what the difference is between the artist being there for an “educational purpose” and the artist being invited to see if there may be some talent available. Either way the artist has to approach the parents through the school officials. I can’t see where there is any risk to anybody.
Actually we don’t all get looked-at as potential employees (ie, producers of profit by way of our talents) all the time, even as adults in public spaces. When I want to be looked-at in that way, it’s my choice to apply for the job. But when my son is at his public school, I do not expect him to be examined, without his or my consent or knowledge, for his potential profitability by a third party. The public school is there to educate my child, not to further the interests of some private enterprise. Doesn’t matter if it’s Bill Henson, Peter Weir, Ursula Hufnagl
or Macca’s; it’s wrong.
I agree Chookie. At the risk of being accused of being some sort of nazi, which happened on another discussion about this very subject, the principal should have had the common sense and courtesy at least, to advise parents of the impending scouting visit.
If she’d done so, parents could have advised the school whether they gave or withheld permission for their child/ren to be considered as potential sitters. Problem solved, controversy avoided, reputations intact and probably some great photos into the bargain.
After all, parental permission almost has to sought for them to go to the toilet, these days. God knows how many permission slips I’ve had to sign while my lot was at school.
Perhaps Mr Henson should stick to landscapes for a while.
Kim – The question that needs to be asked now is why John Brumby was so quick to issue the now apparently customary and/or compulsory loud condemn,
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Well that’s easy. It gives Brumby an opportunity to stand up and be counted as morally righteous whilst taking on board absolutely no risk because essentially he’s got easy targets. Typical of the moral righteous to be hysterically mob-fuelled bullies.
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Speaking of which…
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But were the parents of the children asked for permission before their children were looked-at? How would it be different if a advertising exec came around to look for kids to put in a commercial? And frankly, where were the principal’s brains?
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Yes indeed. It doesn’t matter (yet a-fucking-gain) that the parents universally supported the principal and her decision. It doesn’t matter likewise (yet a-fucking-gain) that Henson’s models and their families have also supported him. It doesn’t matter (yet a-fucking-gain) that the Forces of Righteousness have selectively taken this anecdote abut Henson’s talent spotting out of a context in which parents and models are in control knowing exactly what he’s going to do and having the option to be there when he does it.
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IT DOES NOT MATTER THAT NO HARM HAS BEEN DONE!
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No it doesn’t. What matters is that in our tiny little heads we are haunted by an image of a man salaciously dripping saliva with glee over young naked bodies.
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Of course Henson’s an artist and doesn’t do that. I put it to the Forces of Righteousness that it is they</i who do it. It is they who find this stuff pornographic because it is their dirty minds who can’t conceive of beauty and can only wallow in mire.
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Again and as usual Oscar said it best: Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Perhaps there should be a referendum on whether school principals are allowed to freely admit males to the schoolyard to trawl for nude models.
Gee, wonder what the result of that vote would be?
Gee, wonder what the result of that vote would be?
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Who cares?
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The prejudices of the mob are not any reason to roll back rights. End of story. Interesting that males are especially suspect. Would it be alright for Sally Mann to patrol school yards?
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This is not pornography. Those who think it is have a problem. Get therapy and leave the rest of us out of it.
Anyone who considers it a “right” to patrol schoolgrounds looking for nude models requires intensive therapy…
…. and if they tried it at (say) Lakemba, therapy may be needed.
That’s right Steve. It’s an entirely typical tactic of your side of the debate to refuse to engage rationally in the issues, to determinedly dodge any of the reasonable questions viz what harm’s actually been done. One just repeats <iad nauseum certain mantras like: It is pornography don;t say it’s not and this is sick etc.
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All those involved <ihave no complaints. The law has no complaint. But of course it’s entirely right and proper to bring to bear the forces of mob ‘thinking’. That’s what demiocracy’s all about right?
A majority decision with which one agrees: “Democracy”
A majority decision with which one disagrees: “Mob”
I’d suggest you read a book sometime.
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I recommend Machievelli’s Discourses or Aristotle’s Politics for starters. Plus anything by Cicero. Lefty ratbags all I’m sure
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In these texts Republican and Democratic governments are clearly stated to depend on elements of monarchical and aristocratic governance to prevent democratic polities from becoming mob rule.
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This idea, long utilized and still true today, enhanced and adopted by every complex democracy known to exist has been extended thru the limits on State power to interfere with the doings of individuals. Essential to democracy or even republican oligarchies or even funnctionally liberal monarchies is the protection of minority views, minority activities and the activities of individuals and groups which pose no threat to the body politic.
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To date the Bill Henson Witch Mob have produced exactly no arguments that utlize any coherant evidence of harm done or reasons for public policy interference. Neither has there been any sensible retort to the rebuttal that it is them not us that have a problem. Wherefore this problem? I’d suggest visiting an art gallery sometime. Check out the work of the Carravagisti or Reubens. Naked cherubs galore. Funnily enough until the empty vessels started groaning and moaning about this I didn’t even notice them that much.
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Get to work guys. It’s time to cleanse Western Culture of its, um, culture. Ban Lolita ban Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Ban The Virgin Suicides. It wasn’t extremist puritanism and the miserable life that entails that led to the suicides it was sex. Sex makes you feel icky. It’s true. If it doesn’t. You’re sick.
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Therein perchance lies the truth of these dark adolscent landscapes of the psyche? Hey when I was 14 I thought so. Still do.
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Despite this lack of any logical or considered view, despite the obvious prevelance of hysteria and prejudice, (or rather because of it) the mod still hold the exclusive right to disregard the possibility of mea culpa.
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You find it pornographic? That’s says something about you guys. Not me, not Henson. Again: Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
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Yours.
The above could be part of your submission to Lakemba P&C. (when putting to them the “right” of grown men to stroll the playground looking for prospective nude models)
Doesn’t it occur to you that the presence of a logical argument is entirely on one side of the debate. Descending into sarcasm is simply another way of saying: I’ve lost.
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And what about Lakemba? Wherefore Lakemba? Who cares. Didn’t they vote for Iemma?
Adrien, as I understand it, although the parents have said they didn’t mind, the fact is that even if they did mind, they weren’t given the opportunity to tell the school that they didn’t want their child/ren scouted. And although the principal was operating within Education Department guidelines, it would have been prudent of her to forewarn parents and avoid all the hooha.
Both she and Mr Henson would have been able to stop the furore in its tracks and we wouldn’t even have this thread.
Art is very subjective. What speaks to you as a dark adolescent landscape of the psyche, to another may very well be pornographic and invoke “an image of a man salaciously dripping saliva with glee over young naked bodies.”
“Of course Henson’s an artist and doesn’t do that.” Of course that statement doesn’t hold water. Just because he’s an artist doesn’t mean that he can’t be a pornographer, a child molester, a thief, or like Caravaggio, a murderer.
I’m not suggesting for a minute that he’s any of those things, but one’s occupation doesn’t preclude the possibility of being a criminal or a jerk! Picasso knocked around with Nazis during the war and Wagner sounds like a complete bastard and a shocking anti-Semite, for example.
As for artists from the Renaissance to the early 19th century, did they use children as models for cherubs and even if they did, is it relevant to this discussion? I don’t think it is simply because, unlike theft and murder which have always been illegal, attitudes towards children then were completely different from current attitudes. For example, children were regarded as inherently evil beings who needed to have the devil beaten out of them.
At the moment, I believe it’s almost impossible to have a reasoned discussion about Bill Henson’s work, simply because of the hysteria that currently informs debate on either side. Mind you, I think he’s been pretty unlucky just recently and I wouldn’t advise him to take up gambling and just quietly, I’d be crossing David Marr off the Christmas card list.
Jane, this happened before all the fuss aobut Henson’s photos. The visit was within Education Department guidelines. Such visits happen all the time in schools. It’s nothing unusual. Given this, I can’t fathom the call to common sense and prudence. That’s exatly what they exercising at the time.
Even so Fine, I’ve seen huge brouhahas erupt over much less where parents have been miffed over something as trivial as a choir excursion, even if it is within Education Department guidelines. It’s the sort of thing that can blow up in a principal’s face all too easily. At the risk of giving everyone the sh#ts, it’s worth covering your a#rse at all times if you’re running a school.
To set the record straight, I’ve never been a school principal or a teacher, but I have seen bloody great rows between parents and teachers happen over less, so perhaps I’m more paranoid about the possible trouble a scouting visit could cause.
This thread is wrongly titled. It should be the ‘ “David Marr principal” cleared’.
For it was Marr that dropped the hapless principsl in it, not to mention Henson.
Marr has had many fine moments as a journalist, but this was not one of them.
If I understand Jane’s argument correctly, I should not have the right to attend a local kids’ cricket match on Saturday to see if there are any potentially outstanding cricketers, with the intention (if I spot any) of approaching the appropriate parents to ask if I can offer said kids a place in my representative team. Jane believes I should first give all the parents of all the kids the opportunity to say that they do not want me to look at their kids at all.
The argument, which seems bizarre on the face of it, would be more persuasive if it was accompanied by some reasons in support.
Adrien @ 11, I am not quite sure why you quoted me as if I thought Henson were a paedophile. I thought I had made it clear that I am concerned with the issue of consent and with the idea that someone can treat public school kids as raw material for private enterprise. I’m honestly surprised that the principal wasn’t disciplined over this.
Have you misinterpreted me or have I misinterpreted you?
Yea, good one Ken , just don’t ask them to play in the nude and you’ll be fine.
The controversy here are that: people are threatening violence on an artist that hasn’t broken any laws and who has acted most ethically, and elected politicians condemning and harassing a citizen who has not been subject to any trial. I fear that the mob has won on this one, despite all the activities of Hensen have been judged as being entirely legal, though as children seem to have disappeared from all media entirely… clothed or otherwise.
There isn’t any shades of grey when it comes to child sexual abuse, it is boolean. Some people are suggesting that Henson’s work and work methods are somehow approaching or passing some kind of imaginary threshold of paedophilia and acceptability. Henson hasn’t abused any children. Lets be precise about what abuse is: forcing children to do acts that are of a sexual nature against their will, physically touching their genitalia(for non-medical reasons) or engaging sexual relations with people bellow the age of consent. There has also been some nonsense about Hensens work inciting potential paedophiles, that is like blaming the Wright Brothers for September 11 or claiming women are implicit in their own rape for wearing suggestive clothing. Hensen can’t be blamed if perverts are “turned on” by his works.
I’m working class stock and haven’t got any university degree and would hope that not everyone in Lakemba would be so hysterical about such a non issue. Not sure what Lakemba has to do with this topic though.
On the cricket selection parallel, there is a good chance that children may have to group shower naked and there is always the posibility of a creepy coach hanging around the change rooms!
I know that this topic has been over discussed, and I don’t see much chance that we’ll be able to change anyone’s mind. It is just something that really annoys me.
And let’s not forget religious organisations recruiting at schools. Or the armed forces, lol.
I have a relative who used to teach at one of Victoria’s best public high schools. Shortly after this school story emerged s/he reeled off a list of nine or ten similar events, including the whole school population being rented out to an advertising agency as crowd to fill the stands in a shoot at a football oval. One afternoon = $3000 paid to the school. No parental permission sought or given.
That really is a sign that the guidelines are so poor that its not obvious that renting out kids for government profit like that is just not appropriate. What educational value was that event meant to have for the kids?
Can anybody believe that Victoria’s Department of Education has guidelines for dirty old men to enter school playgrounds underessing ten year olds with his eyes giving each a score out of ten? And since when did grooimg become “talent scouting”?
One of the things which has surprised me is that so many people don’t seem to realise that this sort of stuff happens all the time.
I think the problem of checking with parents about every event is that it’s just going to make everything all too hard to do. For instance, in the Bill Henson case, if one parent disapproves, is that enough to ensure that it doesn’t happen? Or is it done on a majority basis? To use the perhaps less controversial example of a cricket team, again I’d ask the same questions. Do you extend it to guest speakers? Parents may not want their children to hear certain ideas.
James Wakefield – I think Lakemba has been mentioned because it’s full of Muslims, who can be expected to be outraged much more easily than Anglos. Or something.
Ken, your comment about sporting talent scouts is right on the money. I can remember a bloke from Adelaide United showing up to a soccer match one of my sons was playing in, and all the parents encouraging their kids to play their best game ever. There wasn’t any objection to his presence.
Quiet Greenfield, the humans are talking.
You know I can accept that people are uncomfortable with nudity and wouldn’t give permission for their children to be photographed naked, but all that has to be said is “no, sorry I don’t give permission for you to photograph my child.” and everyone lives happily ever after.
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I really don’t think any paedophiles will draw inspiration from Bill Hensen and begin grooming in this method. Generally paedophiles try to befriend the family and raise as little suspicion as possible, and have a low public profile. It is almost always a family friend or relative that is the one that abuses children. I am not saying that artists are somehow better people and less likely to be paedophiles then any other profession but being a talent scout for a sporting team would offer far more potential for grooming then being an Artist. Though far be it for me to bring any logic into the argument. I just think it is a real shame that children are disappearing from society.
Jane – Art is very subjective. What speaks to you as a dark adolescent landscape of the psyche, to another may very well be pornographic and invoke “an image of a man salaciously dripping saliva with glee over young naked bodies.”
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True. But on the basis implied therein wouldn’t we have to ban the Bible and The White Album. Charles Manson used the latter as inspiration to butcher Sharon Tate. I mean I think the Beatles made music that was peaceful and soothing. But art is in the eye, or ears, of the beholder.
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What are we s’posed to do? Prohibit images of children because someone might get off on them? This automatic excursion into the assertion of repressive methods is highly illogical (Captain). The data shows that the correlation between sex abuse is with high degrees of sexual repression. You have a culture in which any kind of sexual expression is suspect and it is that that opens the doors to predators.
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it’s almost impossible to have a reasoned discussion about Bill Henson’s work, simply because of the hysteria that currently informs debate on either side.
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I’m sorry I can usually see both sides of the debate as being equally myopic but in this case the hysteria is heavily weighed on one side. I can count on one hand the number of reasonable discussions I’ve had on the matter. To date none of them have involved any consideration on the part of those who think this is a problem that they may be wrong. To date none of them have stopped to consider the total absence of any complaint of those involved.
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I had a look at Marr’s book. I don’t think he’s guilty of any betrayal. Henson knew what he was getting in to. The response has been to scan the book for evidence of the perverse artist. The best they can do is he talent-scouted at a school. This in effect means he did pretty much what anyone does if they pass a schoolyard. He looked. Shall we ban people looking at children. One of them might be a paedophile. What about a burkha for them?
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I agree that artists are not necessarily nice people. Picasso lived in Paris during the war. If you’d can avoid Nazis in that circumstance good luck. Wagner was an anti-Semite. Caravaggio was violent to the point possibly of being a murderer. Michaelangelo was a misanthrope. The list goes on.
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Please consider however that apart from those who proved target to his deadly wit Oscar Wilde was regarded with immense fondness. He was until his fall a decent chap. However society came out and howled for his blood. Even the theatre producing his play had his name removed from the bill. They didn’t stop the play of course – it was making heaps of cash. What was this play about? Social hypocrisy.
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Picasso, Wagner, Michelanglo – they didn’t suffer for their objectional qualities. They were all highly successful. Poor old Caravaggio, however, is thought to’ve fallen afoul of a professional assassin.
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The myth that art is, to use Andrew Bolt’s favourite word for it, ‘improving’ (as in morally) is balderdash. Robert Hughes has a nice anecdote about the Sigismundo de Maletesta, I won’t repeat it. The guy was known in his his lifetime as “The Wolf”. But he had excellent taste.
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That all said artists are not necessarily worse people either. This is simply a scapegoating session for a. people who don;t understand and/or loath art and artists, b. people who feel anxiety at what they see as the sexual depravity of the times and haven’t the bottle or the power to bring about wholesale change.
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In addressing these concerns generally or combating paedophilia specifically the Henson thing is useless. To date no complaints from those involved. None. What did that ex-model of his say about him? She felt safe.
Ten year old girls are constantly running around in public sports grounds showing off their skills with their vaginas hoping for a “talent” scout to give their particular vagina a 10/10 and perhaps a cover shot!
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You come up with this and have the temerity to belabel someone else as sick?
I’ve deleted those comments from Greenfield.
Though crassly put, he had the most relevant point.
Ken, perhaps you should take the trouble to actually read what I wrote. I never mentioned local sporting or other activities in public spaces.
My comments were in response to issues Kim raised for me in the post about scouting primary school children on school campuses and how best to avoid a repeat of the current furore.
My suggestion that principals and teachers would be wise to cover their a@ses where scouting visits may occur is hardly controversial, I would have thought, or indicative of some sort of totalitarian mindset or a draconian attempt to stifle art.
Schools have to get written parental approval for their kids to go to the school dentist or take part in religious activities on campus, for example, so it can’t be any biggie to ask them to sign a dis/approval form for scouting visits.
But to assume that I advocate getting written parental approval to watch kids play weekend sport or any other activity outside school is a bit of a leap-in fact it requires being able to hurdle the Grand Canyon with one leg tied behind your back, IMO and smacks of the tactics you claim are used by the other side of the debate.
My children have all been involved in sport at a local level and we were always advised if scouts would be at matches looking for kids with sporting talent and in fact a couple of kids were scouted for AFL with prior parental knowledge and consent.
But that isn’t the subject under discussion, is it? The debate as I understand it is whether parental permission should be sought by schools if someone wants to scout for talent of any description.
Adrien, art is subjective. One man’s meat etc. But why are you assuming that because an artist’s work doesn’t appeal to me for example, that I’m going to want it banned?
It may be that I think Bill Henson’s studies of underage adolescents are verging on pornography (I don’t as it happens, before you get on your hobby horse), but in the end it’s only one person’s opinion which I believe one is entitled to hold, or are we only entitled to an opinion if it concurs with yours?
Not everyone who thinks schools are not the place to talent scout is a card carrying member of the Spanish Inquisition, an hysterical art hater or witch burner-well, maybe if they’re wood.
Fine, I guess if one parent says no, their child is removed from the pool. I don’t know why a no vote from one person would be grounds for a blanket ban.
I know the parents at the school in question were
fineOK about Mr Henson’s scouting visit, but what if a significant number were up in arms? How much hell would have been raised and how many court cases would there be in that case? Not to mention careers utterly ruined and people bankrupted, maybe suicides.So what is so wrong about a permission slip and everyone happy?
Laura, If they didn’t have the permission for an outside excursion, they would be in very deep doodoo. Insurance and all that.
Jane – Adrien, art is subjective.
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Did I say differently?
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But why are you assuming that because an artist’s work doesn’t appeal to me for example, that I’m going to want it banned?
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I’m not assuming that you want it banned. I’m talking about the furore in general. There are those who want to impose restrictions on the freedom of expression because of their own discomfort and not for any real public policy reasons.
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It may be that I think Bill Henson’s studies of underage adolescents are verging on pornography (I don’t as it happens, before you get on your hobby horse), but in the end it’s only one person’s opinion which I believe one is entitled to hold, or are we only entitled to an opinion if it concurs with yours?
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No. And I’ll pay you three hundred dollars if you find any real evidence that I hold that view. What I’ve said is that we shouldn’t ban things because of the nefarious inspirations that some people might derive from them. Pornography defined plainly is material designed to arouse. Henson’s work isn’t that. Neither was Nabakov’s. Yet in both cases people who feel uncomfortable with anything that touches on the erotic will use this word, brook no opposing view and charge ahead with the Festival of Smite.
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So what is so wrong about a permission slip and everyone happy?
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The relatively moderate objection to talent-scouting is fair enough. I think that people are projecting onto the event something that isn’t there. All it involves is looking at people. We all get looked at all the time. Henson doesn’t drag off kids he wants to photograph by the hair. There’s a considered and considerate process that ensues.
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Needless to say Henson won’t be re-issuing these requests and principals won;t be granting them any time soon. Still, remembering my boarding school experience wherein showers were deliberately opened to the views of staff who regularly patrolled them at the time of use, having not noticed any objection to this practice which did indeed make me feel uncomfortable I find myself wondering whether this is about concern for kids at all. Methinks not. Methinks it’s about sex=icky.
Wot Adrien said, to which I’d add the fact that nobody who has been involved with the production photographs has made a single complaint about anything to do with the process or the photographs themselves.
I know Adrien and others have made this point many times, but I haven’t heard any of those expressing moral outrage about Henson address it.
Why not?
#41. Because the school was carefully chosen. Most every other primary school in the nation, if the parents discovered a male had wandered around among the tots looking for nude models, they would have formed a mob, complete with flaming torches and baying hounds.
Nobody cares a hoot about sporting scouts, nor about artists, nor about the horniness or otherwise of this Henson. The crucial point is “nude models”. Put it to a vote at any P&C meeting, that a man wander around the playground at lunchtime looking for kids to then photograph in the nuddy, and sell the photos.
Because the school was carefully chosen. Most every other primary school in the nation, if the parents discovered a male had wandered around among the tots looking for nude models, they would have formed a mob, complete with flaming torches and baying hounds.
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Steve you make it sound as if the school was picked out of some conspiracy to represent the mores of Australians generally speaking. It’s a St Kilda school so there’ll be a high proportion of arty-farty types. They may be said, generally speaking, to possess different scruples from the ‘mainstream’.
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But that does not matter.
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This is an example of free association in the private sphere. Of individuals making agreements. There is (here I say it yet a-fucking-gain) no complaint on behalf of those involved. The shock ‘n’ awe comes from the outside. None of this lot ever doubt that they have the right to make selective judgements about the private activities of various individuals. Neither do they doubt that they have a moral mandate to demand that legislation is enacted to restrict people doing something that harms no-one and is not any of their fucking business.
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There are groups who have mores outside the mainstream for which there is much more evidence of actual harm done, and about which there is much more outcry and complaint. There is more of a reason to make legislation yet no-one is crying out about that?
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Why not? Here’s an organization that wrenches families apart, that subjects teenagers to intrusive and abusive sexual surveillance and interrogation. Hell this is an organization wherein the leaders think nothing of wrecking someone’s life because they had the temerity to ask a question! Yet this nefarious bunch of troglodytes are subsidized by taxpayers!
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Again: a simple argument that the Henson Case has brought to light actual harm being done and is therefore anyone’s business apart from those involved. A logical, well-thought out case. That’s all.
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Anybody?
That’s precisely what we’ve never had from any of the anti-Henson folks, of course.
Adrien, banning Bill Henson’s work may be on some people’s agenda, but not mine and at no time have I suggested it should be.
And once again, at no time have I said that scouting can’t be done in public spaces where presumably underage children are supervised by one or both of their parents. And that’s the key to the issue for me.
While children are at school, they are under the supervision of adults other than their parents. Teachers can’t give consent for pupils to go to the school dentist,
or the drug awareness van or to attend sex education classes or be given hep b&c vaccinations or have school photos taken or give a kid a panadol. They have to have parental consent before a pupil can engage in any of those activities, so why should talent scouting be exempt?
SATP @41, succinctly put.
Indeed Jane. I’m sure that most principals would say know. This principal said yes, the parents were fine with it. The problem is? What are you advocating exactly?
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I put it to you that you are actually appalled that some of us aren’t appalled.
That’s ‘no’ not ‘know’. Jesus.
‘ And once again, at no time have I said that scouting can’t be done in public spaces where presumably underage children are supervised by one or both of their parents. And that’s the key to the issue for me.’
Jane you do realise that makes no sense at all? Even if your presumption was well-founded – which even a cursory look at any public space will demonstrate it’s not – how is parental supervision going to affect a third party’s ability to evaluate kids’ suitability to act as photographic models?
You appear to have no problem with an artist checking out kids at a shopping centre and following one home to knock on the door and ask the parents if they are interested in a modelling arrangement, but you object strenuously to the same artist observing kids in the controlled environment of a school, by prior arrangement with the principal, followed by an approach to the parents in a manner endorsed by the principal.
Your objection seems to be that the principal is somehow giving consent to the kids to ‘engage in an activity’, just by virtue of them being observed. It’s an absurd proposition.
Australia Councils new guidelines just released look eminently sensible.
Thank god they are being level headed about this.
Beg to differ there – permission from parents or guardians needed to exhibit photographs of dressed children? wtf?
And by the way, it’s not just photos, it’s all ‘images’ of children. So a grant app involving exhibiting a painted portrait of Nicole Kidman and her new bub would not be eligible for funding unless Nic’s permission was granted.
The Mclean Edwards Archibald portrait of the Blanchett family http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/06/__data/page/8142/Erlich2.jpg would also be verboten under these rules. What a mess.
I’ve only had a quick look, Laura, but I’m inclined to agree with you. We’ll soon have a culture where it’ll just be too difficult to have public images of children, therefore there will be no public images of children left, which is simply bizarre.
This cuts against the current laws in relationship to recording peple (including children) in public places, so it’s not going to be that easy to put those guidelines in place. Australia doesn’t have laws relating to privacy, so that will probalby need to change for a start. So, without those changes in law, how can the Australia Council insist on these guidelines? Hysteria rules.
So if I want to make art using these guidelines do I have to inform anyone first, or can I just use it as a defence if the authoreties become involved?
Ian – what on earth are you talking about?
Fine, I gather the plan is to withhold funding from projects that don’t meet the criteria. Not censorship, but almost as bad.
Laura, I guess that’s my point. It really only effects the tiniest amount of visual art produced. It certainly won’t effect Henson. But it’s completely different than the law, so how can it possibly work effectively?
Maybe it’s jsut the Australia Council distancing themselves / arse covering.
That’s what it probably is, which makes it more farcical.
Heh – i just read the abc news feed which sounded sensible when i commented.
Didn’t see the bit about clothed children (teach me to jump to conclusions!)
THe doco bit may be tricky, and probably needs review, but its an ok draft and there are time for submissions before its finalised.
Laura why do you think the archibald example would be problematic?
I understand the Archibalds require some form of contact between artist and subject prior to entry?
Heck you should see the release form i have to sign this week from an international media channel who want me to license a video to them. I almost have to get the permission of the wild snake in the video.
Beg to differ there – permission from parents or guardians needed to exhibit photographs of dressed children? wtf?
Laura and others, that has been the case for a very long time at our kids’ primary school. A few years ago I built them a website, as they didn’t have one. Every image containing children had to have written permission from the parent of every child in shot, which made playground or group photos impossible. That was one of the factors which ensured that the website never made it to publication (the school’s total refusal to give me any access to, like, publish the thing or delegate someone else to do the publishing was a slight chock under the wheels too. Can you tell i’m a bit bitter?
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SC, the protocols are retrospective, so in addition to the normal Archibald declaration, exhibitors of portraits already painted would have to chase up specific permission relating to the child(ren). This applies as far as I can tell until the child in the image turns 18. If Cate Blanchett couldn’t be reached or didn’t respond the painting would need to be classified by the censors.
I believe another reason schools require permission to post photos publicly is because of custody issues and the likely hood of a non-custodial parent trying to contact the child if the person who has custody decides to relocate to get away from an abusive relationship etc.