{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1157426"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1157426/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8398/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8398/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2010EL8398","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Jo Spence,Rosy Martin","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1157426/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1157426","accessionNumber":"E.396-2010","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. Spence's 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 with artist and psychoanalyst Rosy Martin, Spence developed a co-counselling practice they called 'Phototherapy', which aimed to resolve emotional issues, anxieties or past traumatic experiences through role play and photographic portraiture. The series <i>Libido Uprising</i> criticises the role of women being limited to either carrying out domestic chores or the object of sexual desire. Spence's choice of fishnet tights and red high heels in this photograph are a clichéed costume of seduction, but the tube of the vacuum cleaner that coils around her leg evokes the image of a ball and chain. This may be a nod to the long-standing marital metaphor of referring to one's spouse as a 'ball and chain'. More prevalently, the photograph conveys a image of female entrapment within the roles of housewife and seductress.","physicalDescription":"Colour photo, woman's legs with hoover.","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":["2010EL8398"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"995","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1989","earliest":"1989-01-01","latest":"1989-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Terry Dennett and The Jo Spence Memorial Archive","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"40","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"27.5","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, from the series <i>Libido Uprising</i>, C-type print, 1989.","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.396-2010"],"accessionNumberNum":"396","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2010,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-07-31","recordCreationDate":"2010-04-08","availableToBook":false}}