Omar El-Khairy and Nadia Latif / Homegrown

Homegrown is a piece commissioned by the National Youth Theatre (NYT) investigating the motivation behind radicalisation of young Muslims in schools.

Out of Joint / Rita Sue and Bob Too by Andrea Dunbar

Andrea Dunbar’s play Rita Sue and Bob Too was commissioned by Max Stafford-Clarke, then artistic director of Royal Court, in 1982.

Music Theatre Wales / The Golden Dragon

Although MTW’s production of The Golden Dragon had received positive reviews in the press, some had expressed concerns that all five of the performers were white, despite the fact they were playing various Asian characters.

Eric Gill / The Body

The case study of the exhibition Eric Gill: The Body at Ditchling Museum of Arts & Crafts is different from the others in this section. In all the other cases, Index on Censorship got involved because artwork had been removed or cancelled, but in this case we were brought in at the early stage of the museum’s planning of an exhibition that was potentially divisive and controversial.

Brett Bailey / Exhibit B

The Barbican’s publicity material described Exhibit B as: “a human installation that charts the colonial histories of various European countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when scientists formulated pseudo-scientific racial theories that continue to warp perceptions with horrific consequences.”

Mimsy / Isis Threaten Sylvania

‘Isis Threaten Sylvania’ is a satirical series of light box tableaux, using the children’s toys ‘Sylvanian Families’.

The Believers Are But Brothers bucks the trend

Julia Farrington explores the development of The Believers Are But Brothers, a play exploring the radicalisation of young men and the legal limits of freedom of expression.

Positive Hell

As part of its Art and Offence programme exploring censorship and self-censorship in the arts, Index on Censorship researches examples of censorship in UK theatre, film and visual arts. Index looked at the case of Positive Hell -- a short documentary film that challenges the scientific consensus on HIV and AIDS.

Spiritual America 2014

Spiritual America 2014 Xenofon Kavvadias As part of Index on Censorship’s programme looking into art, law and offence in the UK, this case study looks at Xenofon Kavvadias’s mission to exhibit Spiritual America by Richard Prince in public, effectively reversing the censorship of the image by Tate Modern who removed it from the gallery and […]

The Siege

Throughout Index on Censorship’s Art and the Law information packs, the lawyers who wrote them stress that the packs offer guidance only and are not a substitute for legal advice. Knowing about the law helps an artist or an organisation identify when there could be a legal issue arising from an artwork. But each artwork […]

“The law is no less conceptual than fine art”

“The law is no less conceptual than fine art” Exhibition of Illegal Books by Xenofon Kavvadias 10 Vyner Street London E8 5th May – 17th June 2011 Description of the work In this show books that are or can be considered illegal under contemporary UK anti-terrorist legislation were displayed as an art installation. The books […]

Policing the picket of Exhibit B

This is an account of the policing of the demonstration organised by Boycott the Human Zoo Campaign on the opening night of Brett Bailey’s theatrical installation Exhibit B presented by the Barbican at the Vaults Waterloo.