Don't tell me it doesn't impact to see a child smoking. That's what Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens must have thought to start her project Smoking Kids, photographs of children smoking with the aim of showing the freedom taken from smokers in many places.
How could it be otherwise, this project has been embroiled in controversy, since not only is it “adultized” children characterizing and makeup them as adults, but they are shown with cigarettes, cigars or pipes in the hand or Lips and fuming.
The birth of this project a few months ago coincided with the ban on smoking in Belgian bars with the resulting disparity of reactions in the street. The author intended to show adults turned into children because they are told what they can and cannot do, to criticize the cutting of freedoms of smokers.
Obviously, during the photo shoots no real tobacco was used and the children were not exposed to smoke of cigarettes, which were made of chalk or cheese, and the smoke was caused by candles and incense.
Unfortunately, not all the images we have seen in the blog of children smoking are false, as you will remember with the two-year-old boy who smoked 40 cigarettes a day or with the video of another two-year-old boy smoking. Precisely some of these videos could inspire the Belgian photographer to start this series, as she explains when telling how she created her project:
The YouTube video of a smoking boy inspired me to create the series "Smoking Kids". The video highlights the cultural differences between East and West and questions the notions that smoking is an adult activity.Smoking adults are the social norm, so I wanted to focus attention on the fact of smoking itself. I felt that seeing children smoking would have a real impact on the viewer and would force them to observe the act of smoking itself and not simply make assumptions about the person doing it.
Our colleagues from Xataka Foto highlight that technically speaking these images are exquisite, as well as the great work of characterization of children, and from those points of view they also seem to me.
But I do not like the basic claim, the images of the little ones produce rejection, and in no case I would like them to be seen by my daughters. What do you think about the project? Smoking Kids, photographs of children smoking?
