{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1157428"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1157428/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8396/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL8396/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2010EL8396","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Terry Dennett","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1157428/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1157428","accessionNumber":"E.394-2010","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. In this image, Spence stands erect as a sentry, carrying the familiar prop of the vacuum cleaner as the soldier would carry a weapon. As a sentry is disciplined to conform to the duties of his post, so Spence bears the vacuum cleaner as a symbol of the domestic duties so often expected of women.","physicalDescription":"Colour photo, woman holding 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":["2010EL8396"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLC","id":"THES49171"},"free":"","case":"MB2H","shelf":"DR9","box":"PHOTO"}],"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":[{"text":"Here Spence challenges female stereotypes by performing the role of both housewife and seductress. In one image she stands armed with her hoover, ready to tackle her domestic duties, but in the other, she is shown wearing fishnet stockings and heels,the vacuum tube coiled sensuously up her leg. Both characters reference the clichéd actions women are expected to perform with enthusiasm, be it household chores or sexual temptation.","date":{"text":"May 2023","earliest":"2023-05-01","latest":"2023-05-31"}}],"partNumbers":["E.394-2010"],"accessionNumberNum":"394","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2010,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-07-31","recordCreationDate":"2010-04-08","availableToBook":false}}