Jo Spence

‘I think the problem with photography as it stands now is that when we look at a picture of ourself, 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.’

Spence began her career as a wedding and portrait photographer but subverted the medium, becoming part of the Hackney Flashers collective and dubbing herself a cultural terrorist. Her feminist self-portraiture is conceptual, challenging conventional ideas of beauty and placing herself naked in the post-industrial landscape. She challenged the nature of the art world, for example laminating her photographs to make them available for distribution to community spaces. She was always critical of, and stood outside from, the mainstream gallery and museum scene.