Artist Molly Soda has had nude photos publicly shown without her permission before. Last year, some dude found some photos of her in the trash and put them up in a gallery without knowing Molly Soda was famous-ish. So even though she “doesn’t send nudes” to romantic partners, as she told Paper, she still has had nude photos of her used without her permission. Now, she’s taken control of the public distribution of her naked image in her new project “should i send this?”
The project explores, with Molly Soda’s characteristic honesty and vulnerability, the intimate thoughts and feelings and moments that she typed into her phone and photographed but never shared. Soda told Paper that she’s lonely, and the project is a way to confront her loneliness and lack of intimacy head-on.
“I think we all have unsent thoughts/images that are just sort of overflowing because of our fear of being too ‘forward’ or ‘sincere’ or ‘intense,'” she told Paper. “That fear keeps us from sharing.”
Soda says photos aren’t exactly “leaked,” since that implies lack of consent, but, “on the other hand, I had no intention of sharing or sending them to anyone when I took them.”
(Photo: should i send this?)
