Two photographs published by artists of themselves have generated a great deal of controversy recently. The geographic and cultural distance between the two artists is worlds apart, but their response to repression through a photograph and it’s distribution through the Internet is remarkable. Photography and social media provided a unifying venue that transcended regional and cultural boundaries. Aliaa Magda Elmahdy (مذكرات ثائرة.), an Egyptian art student and Ai Weiwei  (Ai Weiwei investigated over nude art | Art and design | The Guardian) published portraits of themselves unclothed. Both artists revealed their bodies in photographs as statements against political and cultural repression; Elmahdy tells her society to”rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression”, Ai Weiwei uses his image, “One Tiger Eight Breasts”, to assert that nudity is not equivalent to pornography.

Although nudity…