Description of Incident: In October 2001, I held an exhibition titled 'Alice in Loveland' at the Museo de Siyasa in Cieza (Spain). It consisted of a series of photographs of female children (aged 7 to 10), most of which had been previously exhibited at the near town of Molina de Segura a few months before without any incident. Some of the pictures featured nude or seminude children. After 20 days, the exhibition was prematurely closed by the Town Hall authorities (owners of the museum) as a result of pressures by judge Concepcion Ferrer following a report from a Spanish Army officer belonging to the Guardia Civil corps. Immediately afterwards, the judge confiscated all the photographs and ordered a raid at my house seizing all my prints and negatives and the exhibitions' leaflets, as well as my literary works, videotapes and some art books by well-known photographers such as Irina Ionesco or Yoji Ishikawa. I was charged with corruption of minors.

Many artists and intellectuals were on my side and wrote a maniphest vindicating my work and the right to free artistic expression. Well-known artists as Joan Fontcuberta or Albert Boadella gave me their support too.

I was not informed about the case development until March 2002. After that, the videotapes (mostly movies recorded from the TV) were returned, but not the rest of materials. Part of the investigation kept secret some more months. By then, my novel 'Carmila' (one of the seized works) was published. It was possible because one editor kept a printed copy of the original text. The novel, inspired by Le Fanu's gothic classic, featured a love story between a young vampire female and a little girl. Many bookshops refused to sell the book and many presentations in colleges and schools were cancelled. A quiet boicot followed. The novel had been awarded in a prestigious contest in 1998, with a jury formed by many Spanish major writers, including a Nobel prize winner.

In october 2003, two years after the 'Alice' case began, a new judge decided to close the procedure for lack of any evidence to support the charges in a court.

Results of Incident: I received the notification of the ending of the case in February 2004. My works and belongings were returned some days after. However, some pictures of the exhibition had major damages and many articles were lost: among them, some negatives and prints and the exhibitions' leaflets.

Now, part of the exhibition 'Alice in Loveland' can be visited online in Violeta Gomez's site in:

www.portalatino.com/violetagomez

The exhibition is ready to travel to any gallery or art institution around the world if required. In the last years I kept on working on new photographic series and other artistic works.