TABOOB is an idea of photographer Noortje Palmers and Jasper Declercq. With this project they wanted to test how far the censorship on women’s breasts reaches on Instagram. What makes a breast a breast according to the algorithm? Does it have to be round and white? Could it be hairy? Can it have seven nipples, or even none?
Together with stylists and make-up artists, Jasper and Noortje photographed 78 different ’taboobs’. They posted these photos one by one on the Instagram page @taboobofficial. The concept turned out to be a hot topic, because within a few days the number of followers grew to several tens of thousands. In the end, Instagram blocked the page. Twice.
Printed on two different kinds of paper, the brightly coloured images absolutely pop. To emphasize the censorship, carefully placed tracing paper was inserted between the images that Instagram blocked. A special printing technique ‘edge printing’ was used to convey the message: “the content of this book goes against ur community guidelines”.