Uncensored by Adriana Eskenazi

Adriana Eskenazi is a professional photographer who has been working in the sector since 2009. After a ten-year career in advertising and fashion with the studio she co-founded in 2011, eskenaziencursiva, she broke away and started a solo career. This allowed her to deepen her more artistic concerns, apply them to her commercial work and create a parallel style. 

Adriana started working with other formats, such as painting mixed with photography. In photography, she has a special predilection for intimacy and bodies, and in painting, she focuses on the pleasures of life, closely linked to food. Today, she combines commercial commissions with the sale of work, both for national and international clients.

In 2021 Adriana released her first photobook, Amar, about growing older and the mid-life crisis as seen through her own relationship with her partner Marta. Uncensored is her second book, which she has been working on for many years, and thanks to the efforts of many people involved, she was able to publish it in 2020.

About… UNCENSORED

For more than four years, Adriana worked with the adult film company Erika Lust, headed by Erika and Pablo Dobner. She has been able to document their shoots, make -erotic- promotional pictures, and direct some films.

During this time, Adriana collected volumes of images and tried to share some of her pictures on social networks. The more measured ones have remained (basically portraits and pictures with clothed people) but if a friendly nipple peeked out from the background or a piece of a buttock got in the way, the photos were automatically deleted without a trace— erasing likes, comments and bringing her close to the removal of her account (with she has already been punished with on other occasions).

This situation made her wonder about the stupidity that surrounds us. Many times her work was censored regardless of the content; photographs and images that portray an intimacy and sensuality difficult to see.

We have become so used to living with censorship that we’re still addicted to the social network that practices it most (especially towards women). We don’t openly speak about sex with younger or older generations. We still read the press while knowing that many things that are interesting to talk about, are not talked about. We silence opinions and judge others based on traditional morality that has only provided us with punishment and censorship.

This censorship towards all sexuality and the fact that the adult film industry and sex work are still halfway between the frowned upon and the openly accepted implies a dangerous underworld in which there is no limit of any kind and which, ironically is within everyone’s reach.

During these years working at Lust, Adriana has met dozens of sex workers and learned about their perspectives on sex, how different they are sometimes from hers, and how easily they can coexist. She also got to know a stigmatized industry from the more activist and contrary side to what has caused this stigmatization. 

It is surprising how positive and necessary the industry is when it is conducted in a respectful way. Sex is like eating. It’s natural. It’s been with us since the beginning of time, and it’s actually the beginning of everything.

Beyond wanting to analyze the porn industry, Uncensored is intended to bring out all the material that Adriana is not recommended to show, in case her clients stop calling her, her family gets mad at her or Instagram closes her account. It shows that the concepts of sexuality and obscenity can be very opposite even if you have a dick between your hands.

The struggle between art and censorship is historical and inevitable, but with the value and use we give today to social networks and their infinite and totally accessible content, we increasingly prohibit more, censor more, and set aside more of certain types of content according to the moral standards we accept when we click the terms and conditions box. In books and galleries, there are no terms and conditions and that is where you will see most of the really interesting stuff today.

This book is not just another project in a format that Adriana likes, but it is the only way to show this type of work, a work that is not “suitable” for conventional channels of diffusion.