{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1157423"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1157423/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8399/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8399/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2010EL8399","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Terry Dennett","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1157423/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1157423","accessionNumber":"E.397-2010","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Jo Spence was a feminist artist and activist who explored themes of gender, class and self-identity. After Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, she made several series of self-portraits documenting her battle with the disease until her death from leukaemia a decade later. The photographs expressed her physical and emotional state. Her doctor and collaborator Tim Sheard explained, ‘Spence is representing the honest emotions felt living in an unruly body that cannot conform to the pressures of female perfection expected and idealised in Western society’.\n\nWorking in collaboration with psychoanalyst Rosy Martin, Spence developed a co-counselling practice they called 'phototherapy', which aims to resolve emotional issues, anxieties or past traumatic experiences through role play and photographic portraiture. In this image, Spence addresses her difficult relationship with her mother by imagining her at a period of her life before Spence's birth. The photograph documents her process of dressing up and acting the part as she attempts to empathise more profoundly with her mother as an individual, with experiences and hardships  of her own beyond the role of motherhood.\n\nJo Spence (1986) Putting Myself in the Picture, London: Camden Press.","physicalDescription":"Colour photo, woman lighting cigarette.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Spence, Jo","id":"A24270"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"x43821"},"note":""},{"name":{"text":"Martin, Rosy","id":"A32001"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"x43821"},"note":""},{"name":{"text":"Dennett, Terry","id":"AUTH339990"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"AAT251917"},"note":"Jo Spence (1934 – 1992) is one of the most important feminist artists of our time. Her work deals with issues of class, power and gender, death and dying, and she was an early pioneer of photo-therapy methods and the intersections of art and wellbeing.  Her practice was political and highly collaborative, and she worked with artists, doctors, and writers. A socialist and a feminist, she was a founding member of the Hackney Flashers, a collective of female documentary photographers working in the 1970s, and a contributor to the highly influential Camerawork magazine."},{"name":{"text":"Spence, Jo","id":"A24270"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"AAT251917"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[],"techniques":[{"text":"photography","id":"AAT54225"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Colour photograph","categories":[{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2010EL8399"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLH","id":"THES49654"},"free":"","case":"DELTA","shelf":"5","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1985","earliest":"1985-01-01","latest":"1985-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Terry Dennett and The Jo Spence Memorial Archive","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"92.2","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"60.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Photograph by Jo Spence in collaboration with Rosy Martin, 'Photo Therapy: My Mother as a War Worker' from the series <i>Phototherapy</i>, C-type print, 1985","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Making It Up: Photographic Fictions (2018)\r\nMarta Weiss\r\n\r\nIn collaboration with psychoanalyst Rosy Martin, Spence developed a practice called ‘phototherapy’, which aimed to resolve emotional issues or past traumatic experiences through role-play and photographic portraiture. Here Spence addresses her difficult relationship with her mother. By dressing up and acting as her, she attempts to empathize more profoundly with her mother as an individual, with experiences and hardships of her own beyond the role of motherhood.","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}}],"partNumbers":["E.397-2010"],"accessionNumberNum":"397","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2010,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-08","recordCreationDate":"2010-04-08","availableToBook":false}}