Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Anglia Ruskin University
Therapies - video installation/photographs
In Therapies, questions about consent, complicity and the role of pornography are questioned in relation to the use of the female body in photography. Scenes are constructed in collaboration with the subjects, creating an intimate shared space that could be sexual. the scenes are not sexual or fecund or burgeoning with ampleness, but instead scarce, bleak and pared back to the essential dirt and mud. Through this approach, the work questions the traditions of the female nude in painting (the depiction of the female body with the land as a metaphor for mother and nature) and photography ( the female body, complicated, loaded and ubiquitous).
All of the women in ‘Therapies’ grapple with pain, emotional and/or physical; each has a journey underway that they have been prepared to share. Each has wanted to seek an internal sense of calm. Images of partially clad or naked women may appear to be asking the viewer to take the role of voyeur. The subjects, however, appear unaware of the camera and are involved in their own internal world or struggle. Identity is not always revealed and often the gaze is averted, and in this way, the women remain unseen.
Therapies discusses the very real aspects of vulnerability, expectation and fear that women face. It communicates grief and pain, beauty, and the necessity of time, often overlooked by a consumer-driven culture that doesn’t provide reprieve.
