naked women protest against Trump, in cleveland

Cleveland

Over hundred women posed naked with mirrors in Cleveland on Sunday, July 17, in answer to a photographer's call to blend art with politics and portray Donald Trump as unfit for the White House.

The women gathered on the eve of the Republican National Convention, where the New York billionaire officially anointed the party's nominee for president after winning the primary race.

Entitled "Everything She Says Means Everything," the photo art featured women of all shapes, colors and sizes participated, holding up mirrors toward the arena.

"He is a loser," photographer Spencer Tunick told AFP after the sunrise shoot in which 130 women took part. One hundred of them will be featured in the picture to be unveiled shortly before the November 8 election. The installation took place on private property in sight of the arena where the convention kicks off on Monday.

Tunick's website said the mirrors reflected "the knowledge and wisdom of progressive women and the concept of 'Mother Nature'... onto the convention center, city scape and horizon of Cleveland."

The artist is well known for his sometimes startling images of nude people. But Tunick told AFP he thought it was his most political shoot ever, saying he felt compelled to take action as just voting against Trump at the ballot box in November was not enough.

"I have two daughters and a wife," he said. "I can't believe the language and rhetoric of hate against women and minorities coming from the Republican Party."

Po Kinnord, 55, an art professor and artist, said she took part because she loved Tunick's work and happened to be visiting her niece in the city where she grew up.

Currently living in New Orleans, she said the installation opposed Republicans who were making Americans afraid, by telling them they should fear Muslims and immigrants.

"To be totally naked and out in the open and to be fearless is what we need to be," Kinnord explained.

Kinnord said she would "never" vote for Trump and expressed hope that Britain's recent referendum voting to leave the European Union had been a wake-up call against complacency in the US election.

Morning Robinson, 18, who took part with her mother, said she wanted to do something a little different before going off to college that would enable her to express herself freely.

"I was really nervous at first," but it felt good being out in the open and not afraid of her body, she said. "Republicans have this view of how women should be in society and I just don't agree. I don't know exactly, I just know their views don't match mine."

Source: lindaikejisblog