Jo Spence
Photo therapy: Narratives of Dis-ease (Exiled) (set of 5 works), 1989
Vintage C-type print
18 x 12.7 cms
7 1/16 x 5 ins
Series: 5. Photo Therapy Collaborations (1984-90)
12323
Provenance
The Jo Spence Memorial ArchiveRichard Saltoun Gallery, London
Exhibitions
Jo Spence : from Fairy Tales to Phototherapy. Photographs from the Hyman Collection, Arnolfini Bristol, (18th May 2020 - 20th June 2021) (this print)Jo Spence: A Woman’s Place? at Belfast Exposed in Collaboration with the Centre for British Photography. 7th October 2024 – 21st December 2024
Literature
Jo Spence Cultural Sniping p.207 (illustrated)
Jo Spence in collaboration with Dr Tim Sheard. Spence has written of the Narratives of Dis-ease series: 'In these photographs is the beginning of a 'subject language'. One which allows....
Jo Spence in collaboration with Dr Tim Sheard.
Spence has written of the Narratives of Dis-ease series:
"In these photographs is the beginning of a 'subject language'. One which allows. me to start the painful process of expressing my own feelings and perceptions, of challenging the 'ugliness' of being seen as Other. In so doing I cease to be a victim, becoming again an active participant in life. I am not suggesting that making these pictures has solved all my problems, nor do I want to create a new mythology, dwelling only in the active role, I still oscillate between going subject and object/victim, but am no longer 'stuck' and have begun to learn to live with my own totality.
In displaying this work (as I displayed my body previously for each of the medical, the familial, the media and the male gazes) I am aware that these images can shock. Breaking out is not a painless process for anybody. In cracking the mirror for myself I cannot help but challenge your view too. By giving expression here to eight years of my life I stand in contradiction to those who have the power to repress or deny the experience of others. Inso doing they make our experience appear ordinary, robbing it of any importance or potency.
If I don't find a language to express my subjectivity I am constanty danger of forgetting what I already know."
This text was originally published in the group exhibition catalogue Exploring the Unknown Self? Self Portraits of Contemporary Women, Tokyo Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1991.
Spence has written of the Narratives of Dis-ease series:
"In these photographs is the beginning of a 'subject language'. One which allows. me to start the painful process of expressing my own feelings and perceptions, of challenging the 'ugliness' of being seen as Other. In so doing I cease to be a victim, becoming again an active participant in life. I am not suggesting that making these pictures has solved all my problems, nor do I want to create a new mythology, dwelling only in the active role, I still oscillate between going subject and object/victim, but am no longer 'stuck' and have begun to learn to live with my own totality.
In displaying this work (as I displayed my body previously for each of the medical, the familial, the media and the male gazes) I am aware that these images can shock. Breaking out is not a painless process for anybody. In cracking the mirror for myself I cannot help but challenge your view too. By giving expression here to eight years of my life I stand in contradiction to those who have the power to repress or deny the experience of others. Inso doing they make our experience appear ordinary, robbing it of any importance or potency.
If I don't find a language to express my subjectivity I am constanty danger of forgetting what I already know."
This text was originally published in the group exhibition catalogue Exploring the Unknown Self? Self Portraits of Contemporary Women, Tokyo Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1991.