Double screening: Jo Spence and Bonnie Camplin

This special double screening features two intergenerational practices that explore the sociocultural and political conditions of health, sickness and end of life care.

Cancer (2004)
Bonnie Camplin
4mins 39secs

“In Cancer (2004) we see an unknown professor presenting the facts of cancer and stem cell theory in deadpan manner. Suddenly the image distorts, rips at the seams, and his skull disappears, leaving only floating eyeballs as hundreds of pixelated figures pour down the screen in a visual mimesis of the impact of cancer cells within the body. Bone, brain, breast, thyroid, lymphoma, metastases and sarcomas: perhaps cancer in all its stubbornly enduring biological fact is the true villain of the piece.” Dan Fox, frieze, June 2004.

Bonnie Camplin (b. 1970, London), lives and works in London. She studied at St. Martins School of Art, London, and holds a BFA in Fine Art Film and Video and a Post Grad in Advanced Photography. She works both independently and collaboratively. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Camden Arts Centre, London (2017), Cabinet London (2013), Michael Benevento, Los Angeles (2012), and Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender, Berlin (2011). She was included in Assembly, A survey of Recent Artists Film and Video in Britain 2008–2013, Tate Britain, London (2013); Sound works, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2012); Madame Realism, Marres Centre for Contemporary Art, Maastricht (2011); and When the Wind Blows Up You, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2009). In 2015 she was nominated for the Turner Prize for her 2014 presentation at South London Gallery as part of Anxiety Arts Festival.

Arena: Putting Ourselves in the Picture – the Work of Jo Spence(London: BBC, 1987)
Directed by Ian Potts
60mins

First produced as part of the BBC’s influential Arena series, this documentary looks at the life and work of Jo Spence following her diagnosis with breast cancer in 1982. Spence held the firm belief that photography has an empowering capacity when applied to complex issues of class, power, gender, health and the body. Within her work, Spence documented her lumpectomy and adoption of an alternative health regime, charting her journey through illness and her treatment within the apparatus of the NHS. Spence articulates her feelings of being infantilised at the hands of the doctors and interrogates the ‘medical gaze’.

Jo Spence (b. 1934, London d. 1992, London) emerged as a key figure in the mid 1970s from the British photographic left, crucial in debates on photography and the critique of representation. Her work engaged with a range of photographic genres, from documentary to photo therapy, and responded to the prioritisation from the late 1970s onwards of lens–based media in art–critical discourse. In 2012, a two venue retrospective was held in London at Studio Voltaire and space which was curated by Paul Pieroni and Joe Scotland, and subsequently toured to White Columns, New York. Solo presentation have included Tate Britain, London (2015), MACBA, Barcelona (2005) and Camera Austria, Graz (2006). Her work is represented in international public collections including Tate Collection, London: MACBA, Barcelona; GOMA, Glasgow; Ryerson Image Centre, Canada; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

This event is free, but due to high demand, booking is recommended.

This event forms part of the public programme accompanying Putti’s Pudding, an exhibition of works by Cookie Mueller and Vittorio Scarpati (9 September–12 November 2017).

Putti’s Pudding is a book and ‘final project’ by American writer and actor Mueller, and her husband, Italian artist Scarpati. Published in 1989, the same year both died from complications related to AIDS, it pairs drawings by Scarpati with writing by Mueller.

Reimagined as an exhibition at Studio Voltaire, Putti’s Pudding features forty–five original felt–tip pen on notepad drawings made by Scarpati when he lost the ability to speak, accompanying texts by Mueller, and a public programme of talks, readings, screenings and performance.

Image: Crisis Project / Picture of Health? (Property of Jo Spence?) 1982 © The Jo Spence Memorial Archive.