Jo Spence

A Picture of Health: Helmet shot, Collaboration with Terry Dennett. From Remodelling Medical History series, 1982

A Picture of Health: Property of Jo Spence?, Collaboration with Terry Dennett, 1982

Hiding by joking: Why do I have to hide my injuries?, 1988

Anger Work, Collaboration with Tim Sheard, 1988

Narratives of Dis-ease: Exiled, Collaboration with Tim Sheard, 1990

Mammogram (Picture of Health?), 1982

Jo Spence emerged as a key figure in the mid-1970s from the British photographic left, crucial in debates on photography and the critique of representation. In 1982, Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer and began documenting her battle with the disease. The heartbreakingly intimate series of self-portraits, Narratives of Dis-ease, a collaboration with her doctor, Tim Sheard, challenged female beauty ideals and was among her most important works. After her diagnosis, she used photography as both a soothing activity and a way of documenting what she saw as the failures of the medical establishment. At the time, very little information was available about alternative cancer therapies, nor was there an effective system in place for supporting patients with counselling. The focus was almost exclusively on prescribing drugs and performing surgery. When Spence requested a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy (opting to have the cancerous tissue removed rather than the entire breast) her doctors were dismissive and patronising, though in the end they did as she asked. (Paul Pieroni)

Her series of photographs entitled The Picture of Health narrates and criticizes the processes of infantilization, victimhood and depersonalization that a patient experiences during their treatment, as well as the search for alternative therapies. This experience led Spence to develop, with Rosy Martin, a practice called PhotoTherapy, which employs photography to address personal trauma. The late Jo Spence’s radical, personal proposition for PhotoTherapy remains a pioneering form of photography as a form of healing. The method they devised is “about exploring aspects of one’s own history within the containment and support of the therapeutic gaze, which offers a kind of mirroring that acts as a witness to the story which unfolds, gives permission, and is not judgemental.” (Rosy Martin) The process moves from subjectivities—mapping out the various gazes we experience and how they have implanted external images in us—to embodiment, where the patient can let go and claim their own narrative; the pictures are then used in counselling sessions.

The exhibition presents a selection from Spence’s photographs, which are related to her main series concerning her health and condition, The Picture of Health? and Narratives of Dis-ease.