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The September Stories Issue

A Boob Pin That Symbolizes Self-Representation, Identity, and the Female Body

Marina Garcia-Vasquez, editor-in-chief of Creators at VICE, discusses why this pin is so important to her.

This story appears in the September Issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

For the first half of the year, I was traveling to Manhattan from our Brooklyn headquarters for meetings at the Museum of Sex. It sounds risqué, but I was there to discuss a collaboration with the museum, one that would allow Creators, the art and culture platform at VICE, to curate an exhibit promoting female artists. We've seen a surge of interest from our readers in NSFW articles about young female artists who explore themes of sexuality and identity in their work. So in collaboration with the museum, we organized a show titled NSFW: Female Gaze, dedicated to powerful feminine narratives with 28 female artists from various disciplines—from illustrator Polly Nor and textile artist Erin M. Riley to painter Kristen Liu-Wong and photographer Marie Tomanova.

Before the show opened to the public in mid-June (it will be on display through January 2018), Museum of Sex curator Lissa Rivera gifted me this pin because we had spent months discussing the female form, debating the female gaze, and poring over so many works of nude art. I keep the pin on my desk to remind me how important self-representation, identity, and the female body are and that women of all shapes, races, and experiences have a place in media and the arts.