ROSY MARTIN IN COLLABORATION WITH JO SPENCE

'The Centre for British Photography is a wonderful addition to British cultural life. This initiative is so exciting, and so welcome - British photography has been marginalised, even in the exhibitions by major institutions - so it offers a vital redress. It offers a much needed addition to the opportunities to view, discuss and debate what is now such a popular art form and particularly the extensive range of work made by British practitioners. The addition of the archive and library will be useful for academics, students, critics and art historians. The support offered to practitioners in the form of commissions, grants, acquisitions and sales will make all the difference for those currently working in Britain, for whom realising ambitious projects is most often blocked by lack of finance.'

Rosy Martin about the opening of the Centre for British Photography.

'Working in collaboration with Jo Spence, in one session I joked about how expensive life has become and said ‘I might as well be burning money’.

Given the playful, and deeply therapeutic way we worked together this was a cue to actually do it, there and then. Jo photographed my ‘performative action’. It was a one off, no rehearsal, really being in the moment showing both the concentration and the glee, a sense of liberation and folly.

These images come from our collaborative phototherapy practice. We explored the specificities and minutiae of personal histories, located in time, place, and culture through performative re-enactments. The emotional containment and safety offered by the photographer/therapist allowed the protagonist to express previously repressed emotions, such as anger, desire, grief and shame and then move through to a transformation. A multiplicity of identities was revealed within the drama of the everyday, as difficult even traumatic social and psychic constructions were laid bare.'

Rosy Martin about the image.

Rosy Martin (born London 1946) is an artist-photographer, psychological-therapist, workshop leader, lecturer and writer. She explores the relationships between photography, memory, identities and unconscious processes using self-portraiture, still life photography and video. From 1983, with the late Jo Spence, she pioneered re-enactment phototherapy. She has exhibited internationally and published widely since 1985. Her work explores issues including gender, sexualities, ageing, class, desire, memory, location, urbanism, family dynamics, mother-daughter, father-daughter, ambivalence, shame, health, disease, bereavement, loss, grief and reparation.