Misbehaving Bodies

Jo Spence & Oreet Ashery at the Wellcome Trust

 

I first became aware of Jo Spence’s work when a first year student in Nottingham. Having left London due to a chronic pain condition or two, I had faced a long battle to be diagnosed with Hypermobile-type Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Fibromyalgia when my course leader recommended I research Spence. Some recommendations glance off me – Spence stuck.

 

When one first encounters Spence’s work, the images we are likely to see are a defiant reclamation of her own body and experiences. The X here does not mark treasure, but a story of a doctor who ignored the patient he drew upon, indicating which breast he intended Spence to lose to mastectomy without even acknowledging the human being herself.

Jo Spence, Infantilization (with Rosy Martin)

 

Spence began her career as a commercial portrait photographer, creating the precursors to the idealised illusions we in the 21st Century are so preoccupied with. The exhibition that the Wellcome Trust have created after their 2015 acquisition of several of Spence’s work speaks of an obsessive self examination. From Spence’s reflections on youthful portraits of herself taken in studios to the documentation of her illnesses and treatment choices, the gaze is always ambivalent. By turning the camera onto herself and seizing control of the narratives created, Spence stares us down and asks us in turn to consider what compromises our social or public self and how much power we hand over to others.

I have found Wellcome to be one of the most rewarding institutions to engage with during my arts education. It took several years and five GPs across three practices before I could secure a referral to the rheumatologist who said it was “obvious” I had a hypermobility spectrum condition, and one psychologist who had dragged a two hour process out to five hours over a year laughed when I raised the possibility of ADHD, which I was diagnosed with in February 2019. In the booklet that accompanies the exhibition, curators Bárbara Rodríguez Muños and George Vasey describe Wellcome as “an institution dedicated to how we think and feel about health”. When our own experiences are denied, ignored or rewritten by those in positions of authority over our bodies and our available options, it is remarkable how relevant Spence’s experiences still are today and this exhibition feels incredibly important.

 

Spence died when I was reaching puberty and my adult lifetime has seen so little progress in the attitudes of those with a moral duty to preserve, improve and “save” lives that a flurry of news stories implying that patients receiving long term treatment are unnecessarily dependent or even addicted to the medications which allow them a quality of life appeared in the same week discussions around likely drug shortages after a No Deal Brexit is reaching fever pitch due to the prorogation of parliament. GPs in London have been advised to refuse multiple referrals to patients presenting with complex cases. While Spence rejected conventional treatment, with chemotherapy being withdrawn from one London hospital and an Oxford hospital raising the possibility of “rationing” treatment, would she even have been offered adequate intervention today?

 

From politicians to doctors, a system has emerged wherein the phrase “playing God” has never felt so apt. Who holds the power over life or death in a country where figures from 2017 show an almost 50% rate of suicide attempts among disabled benefits claimants? These individuals, whose will to live has been worn down to a coin toss, are the lucky few, not included in the thousands of names who died after being declared fit for work or before their claim was processed.

 

It is hard not to encounter Spence’s use, re-use, the constant revisiting of her traumatic experiences as being informed by fear. Fear that it will have meant nothing, fear that her voice will be unheard yet again. I find it particularly poignant that Spence deals with childhood tensions and fears surrounding being loved and accepted alongside the medicalisation of her physical body. This brings the psyche into focus as a vital part of understanding individuals holistically rather than as anonymous “cases”. However, the myriad journals and laminated, large scale zine pages documenting her progress through alternative treatments and dietary changes have endured. The tonal shift between this fighting voice and the abstracted, quiet acceptance of the large print shown from The Final Project is stark.

 

It is in this space that we may explore Oreet Ashery’s work. (coming soon, part II)

Part of a laminated page by Jo Spence on show in the exhibition (photograph mine)

Still from Revisiting Genesis, Oreet Ashery  (taken from Guardian website)

 


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