An exhibit by top Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani exploring human rights abuses in Cuba has opened in the European Parliament.
Entitled 'Forbidden To Think: The Faces Of Cuban Repression', the exhibition consists of a series of massive portraits of political dissidents.
While Toscani has won a reputation for shocking or unconventional images, the photos in the Cuban exhibit are simply enlarged, black and white portraits of individual faces.
Suspended from the ceiling, they spiral as visitors walk between them, and are interspersed with a red and white portrait of the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.
Unusually, the photographs were not even taken by Toscani. Instead he used images from identity documents that he found online.
Speaking at the inauguration in Brussels, Toscani explained the rationale behind the show.
"I'm not here to create virtuoso photographs," he said. "In this exhibit, art consists of action applied to the human condition. It is always an honour to work on an issue linked to human rights".
According to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament (ALDE), which helped organize the exhibit, it is intended to draw attention to a group of intellectuals arrested in March 2003.
Seventy-five people were charged with treason and political conspiracy, some of whom received sentences of up to 28 years.
Despite international pressure, only 14 have been released for health-related reasons while the rest remain in jail.
The European Union imposed sanctions for a brief period in the wake of the arrests but later abandoned these in favour of dialogue.
ALDE says the exhibit is intended to encourage MEPs to look at developments since then and consider whether "political dialogue is actually influencing human rights" in Cuba.
Although Toscani earned a reputation for shock tactics during 18 years as creative director for the Benetton fashion line, he has always insisted his work is a vehicle for getting across important social messages to the public.
His campaigns for Benetton have featured a dying AIDS victim, disabled children, flood victims in Asia, a man slain by the Mafia lying in a pool of blood and the bullet-riddled shirt of a Bosnia combatant.
Benetton sacked Toscani in 2000 following a raft of lawsuits sparked by a disastrous campaign focusing on American death row inmates.
The exhibition, which has been travelling for the last three years, has already shown in Poland, Hungary and several locations in Italy and Spain. After leaving Brussels, it will move to the Netherlands, France, Sweden and the US.
