Cinderella: Women, Class and Fairy Tales in Jo Spence's work
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
No booking required
Jo Spence found the Cinderella story a rich source of inspiration for exploring contemporary representations of class and women. Her critical work on the story led her to realise numerous creative projects related to it, catching the attention of the BBC’s Arena programme, who asked Spence to contribute to an episode aired in 1986 which aimed to re-appraise the fairytale.
This roundtable coincides with the Peltz Gallery’s exhibition Cultural Sniping: Photographic Collaborations in the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive as part of Birkbeck’s programme of events opening up the archive to wider a audience. This exhibition showcases important materials from the archive of the late Jo Spence, British photographer, writer, and self-described 'cultural sniper', tracing links and collaborations in activist art, radical publications, community photography and phototherapy from the 1970s and 1980s. Consistent with Spence's ethos of radical pedagogy, this exhibition focuses on her collaborative working methods. It opens up the archive, displaying books, magazines, journals, collages, photographs, posters, pamphlets, notes, letters and props, to provide insights into Spence's practices and the culture, politics and activism informing them. Screenings and workshops will run alongside the exhibition.
On display are works made in association with Spence's collaborators, including Terry Dennett and Rosy Martin. Materials from the Photography Workshop community project to the Polysnappers, the group she worked with while a mature student, show how they used photography to interrogate dominant representations of labour, class, race, gender and sexuality, developing a praxis of political and social change through education. Life-long learning was crucial to Spence, who encouraged others to engage in visual critiques and consciousness-raising projects based on their own life experiences. She and Martin pioneered the practice of phototherapy, working through themes of working-class identity and stigmatisation, sexuality, grief and illness, using photography in an empowering and transformative way.
The exhibition is curated by Patrizia Di Bello, Frances Hatherley, and a group of Birkbeck students and part of Birkbeck's Opening up Art History 50th anniversary celebrations.
Kindly supported by a grant from Birkbeck Alumni Fund.
Contact name:
Patrizia Di Bello