This picture shows Italian performance artist Vanessa Beecroft and orphaned Sudanese twins she tried to adopt
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 30, 2020 at 11:23
- Updated on December 31, 2020 at 11:37
- 2 min read
- By Mary KULUNDU, AFP Kenya
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“An Australian woman gave birth to twins and there father is a south Sudanese (sic),” reads one Facebook post from December 15, 2020.
Included in the post is an image of a white woman nursing two black babies.
The same image appears in another post with a similar claim that reads: “White/ Australian woman married to South Sudanese man, gave birth to darkest twin ever”.
The claims, however, are false.
Italian artist
The woman in the picture is not Australian, nor is there any evidence that she is married to a South Sudanese man. The babies are not hers either.
A reverse image search on Google reveals that the woman is Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian performance artist. According to reports (here and here), Beecroft posed for the picture during a film she was shooting titled: “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins”.
The film follows the artist’s attempt to adopt orphaned Sudanese twins who she met and breastfed during her 2006 trip to Sudan, five years before the country split and the south gained independence. However, the adoption did not go through.
Beecroft's work with the twins attracted controversy, and in 2009 she said she received death threats after being accused of exploiting the children. The photograph was exhibited again in 2015 at a German museum exhibition about representations of the concept of charity.
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