“I Fought The Law” Is A Collection Of Photographs Inspired By The Most Obscure Laws In America

Bored Panda reached out to Olivia Locher to find out more about the series “I Fought the Law”. We wanted to know about the process of researching all the obscure laws she decided to choose for her book. The artist said: “I found a good amount of the laws from old books published by Scholastic in the '70s, I found others on websites dedicated to the subject. Next, I worked with a fact checker to try to find the origins and history. A lot of these laws stay on the books simply because the process of removing them takes a lot of effort and money.”

We were wondering which one of the laws from the series turned out to be Olivia’s favorite in terms of creating a photograph for it. Locher told us: “The ice cream photo has become my favorite because it seems to represent the whole project very well! The photo represents how it’s illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket in Alabama.”

Asked about what this series says about American culture and society, particularly in relation to laws and social conventions, Olivia said: “All these little laws sometimes can add up to big expenses in the wrong place and time. Absurd laws can become a very effective tool of political agendas. The ones I explored might be more comical, but they allude to the slipperiness of the legal system, which sometimes does warrant fighting.”

We were curious what was the public response to this series. Also, we asked if the photographer received any feedback from lawmakers or legal authorities. Olivia told us: “I am always so touched anytime someone lets me know they enjoyed the project. It’s always such an honor when people send me a photo of the book in a store they love or in their homes. I hope people will continue to have their own adventures with the work. I always enjoy it when lawyers reach out to let me know the book lives on their coffee table. A few law firms have even bought prints of the work, so I’m happy it has touched people who deal with this subject matter day after day.”

The series "I Fought The Law" was formally released in 2017, and as a considerable amount of time has elapsed, we were curious if the author is aware of any modifications to the laws featured in it since then. Olivia said: “In NYC there was a law that banned dancing link, it was repealed in 2017. My friend, the former councilmember Rafael Espinal, introduced the bill to repeal it. It's not unlike New Hampshire’s photograph in my book: 'In New Hampshire, you can't tap your foot to keep time to music' — they were both created for the same reasons; it’s a cabaret law. These laws require nightclubs and bars to have a specific license if they intend to host three or more people dancing at the same time. In NYC this law has been in effect since 1926. Law enforcement often utilized this law if they wanted to shut a place down. It was a big win for NYC when that law was revoked.”

We asked Olivia about some future plans and projects she is going to work on. We also wanted to find out if she is going to continue exploring themes related to politics and social commentary in her work. Locher told us: “I have been working on a long-term project since 2012 called How To. It is a collection of over 150 photographs that chronicles misguided attempts at human achievement, inspired by how instructions could be easily lost in translation, resulting in a new form of success or failure for the model. I began staging these photographs in my studio during my senior year at SVA. This project has and continues to serve as my creative diary for the past decade. I am hoping to eventually compile this work into a second book, the work largely comments on politics and social commentary. I also am about to start a new portraiture project using kids as models.”