Jo Spence

Following on from my idea for creating a magazine that empowers women I decided to look at the photographer Jo Spence. I managed to access an archive of her work from the University of Birbeck in London. Spence did not use the word feminist to describe herself but instead called herself a ‘cultural snipper’. She used her camera to shoot and expose issues in culture. I am particularly interested in her work which targets the medias representation of women where she discovered that females are always coded as “young, plucked and perfectly made up” – Jo Spence.

I admire how she challenged the norms of representations and produced work which was relatable and does not hide the truth.

“I think the problem with photography as it stands now is that when we look at a picture of ourselves we try and make it do too much work. I think the whole of our society tries to push us to a notion of coherence in who we are” – Jo Spence.

Spence started to look at family albums and open the album to things that are normally excluded. She added bad photos, photos taken late at night when she’s tired and a photo that had been used for an insurance claim where her face was singed in an accident at home.

I was immediately hit with the thought that in our society we are extremely photo and selfie obsessed. Now more than ever we are able to pose to get the perfect image which can be retouched and positioned to imply we have a perfect life. Spence hated the way the media represented women but I can relate this to how Instagram uses pose for their ‘perfect’ image.