Jo spence work
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Jo Spence
British photographer
Jo Spence | |
|---|---|
self portrait | |
| Born | (1934-06-15)15 June 1934 London, United Kingdom |
| Died | 24 June 1992(1992-06-24) (aged 58) London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Photography |
Jo Spence (15 June 1934, London – 24 June 1992, Camden) was a British photographer, a writer, cultural worker, and a photo therapist. She began her career in the field of commercial photography but soon started her own agency which specialised in family portraits, and wedding photos.[1] In the 1970s, she refocused her work towards documentary photography, adopting a politicized approach to her art form, with socialist and feminist themes revisited throughout her career.[1][2] Self-portraits about her own fight with breast cancer,[1] depicting various stages of her breast cancer to subvert the notion of an idealized female form,[3] inspired projects in 'photo therapy', a means of using the medium to work on psychological health.
Early life
Jo Spence was born on 15
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The photography of Jo Spence deals with issues of class, power and gender, death and dying. Spence began her career as a commercial photographer, specialising in family portraits and wedding photos. She pushed the medium beyond this narrow subject matter to explore its political function, challenging the social and structural barriers working against female artists of the time. Out of this emerged her collaborations with the Hackney Flashers, a collective of female documentary photographers. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, Spence later developed the technique of 'photo therapy,' using photography as a therapeutic tool to document her battle with the disease.
Spence's work has featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including 'Misbehaving Bodies: Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery,' Wellcome Collection, London (2019); Stills Gallery, Edinburgh (2016); 'All Men Become Sisters,' Muzeum Sztuki ms2, Lodz (2015); 'Tate Britain BP Spotlight,' London (2015); 'Not Yet,' Reina Sofia, Madrid (2015); 'Work (Part III): The History Lesson' at White Columns,
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Jo Spence
Born 1934 London, England
Died 1992 London, England
Biography
Jo Spence was a British photographer, writer, cultural worker, and photography-based therapist. Her career began as a commercial photographer, but she shifted her practice in the 1970s to produce documentary photography with socialist and feminist themes. As a member of the Hackney Flashers photography collective (1974–80), Spence made visible the invisible aspects of working-class women’s lives through photomontage.
In 1982, Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer. She documented her subsequent battle with the disease through photographic self-portraiture. ‘The Picture of Health?’ (1982–1986) series subverts idealised images of the female body whilst constituting a tool (phototherapy) to come to terms with and regain control of the body in response to the accepted authority of modern medicine. In both these capacities, the traditional photographer/subject relationship is disrupted through photography. Spence continued to document her illness to the end, culminating in ‘The Final Project’ (
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