The Seven Noses of Soho

Attached to the walls of various buildings around the Soho neighborhood, in one of the inner boroughs of London, are several plaster casts of human noses of various sizes. The noses were set up by artist Rick Buckley in 1997 as a form of protest against the rising use of surveillance cameras across the streets of London. These security cameras were drawing criticisms from many different quarters because a lot of people viewed them as a huge step closer to the “Big Brother” society.

Inspired by the guerrilla activities of the Situationist —a mid-century organization of avant-garde social revolutionaries— Rick Buckley decided to install plaster of Paris and polymer casts of his own nose at various structures across London, right under the noses of “the liberty threatening CCTV Cameras.”