Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery are two artists who are good at using bodies to combine social consciousness and art together. “Artworks play an important role in establishing visual and discursive space related to social practices associated with disease regimes” (Radley 366). In the free exhibition, they use their artworks to show the deep meaning of chronic illness for people’s lives and make the audience rethink the identity of misbehaving bodies.
It is obvious that the untypical bodies in the current society are often marginalized and many people do not understand the behavior of Jo Spence that she shows her untypical body for the audience. The society lacks care for people with chronic illness or untypical bodies, and even does not give them enough respect and equal rights. Jo Spence’s work is like a self-portrait of pathology. “Spence’s photographs are narratives of living with cancer that incorporate visual andtextual elements” (Bell 05). The patient takes pictures of herself as part of her life experiences or gives them meaning. Compared with the abstract art language, this kind of more concrete pictures and objects are obviously more persuasive. Jo Spence is a key figure in the photography field in the 1980s. She plays an important role in the criticism expression. Her works involve a variety of photographic styles and respond to the social dispute in a direct way. She firmly believes that when photography is applied to complex problems such as class, power, gender, health and body, it has a kind of authorized ability. From this point of view, Jo Spence has focused on confronting all forms of hegemony, dominance and control, including the public’s stereotype of ‘misbehaving’ or ‘untypical’ bodies. These profound themes become the main creative elements of her works. In this exhibition, many of her works call for people to reflect on the meaning of life and encourage people to correctly view the illness and changes of the body. She bravely exposes the real side of the disease, just like her work “The Picture of Health”. In this work, she uses her own photos to show the trauma of cancer and change people’s general conception of cancer patients. She is both the victim and heroin during the treatment process. Her other work “The Final Project” reflects her idea that the human body belongs to nature, which in accordance with Oreet Ashery’s artistic idea.In the exhibition, Oreet Ashery’s works also make the audience rethink the significance of their bodies, whether the body is healthy or ill. What’s more, Oreet Ashery wants more people to know that their death is not the end and all people in this world should be treated equally. Ashery exposes the reality that many patients are marginalized when they seek proper treatment. The artwork “Revisiting Genesis” is evidence to prove her idea. In this 12-part mini-series, the audience can find different characters with different diseases, who face social marginalization because of their special identity. The artworks make people understand that disease gives people the opportunity to re-recognize life. The struggle, crying and asking for help in diseases express people’s real needs for life and nature. If people seriously face the disease, they will find that its torture process is actually to mobilize the potential of human life and awaken people’s awe of nature. To some extent, disease makes man and nature unified. Disease is more like a rehearsal of death and a warning. The contemplation of disease and these ‘untypical’ bodies can help people give up the unimportant things in life and get more freedom. But if the warning is resisted, people may pay a greater price. Only when the disease comes, people will lose their mask and become pure and real in constant reflection. So these patients and special bodies cannot be ignored and marginalized by society
In short, the exhibition with the theme of misbehaving bodies shows the artistic theme of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery’s works. “Artworks also tell about illness experience and are used as claims to social justice” (Radley 219). They hope that society will give enough attention and respect to disease groups. Illness makes some groups have special social identities and make them face the stereotype of the public. This goes against the natural relationship between human body and life. So people should consider illness with common mentality and explore the real meaning of life.
Reference:
Bell, Susan E. “Photo images: Jo Spence’s narratives of living with illness”. Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Newsletter, IEEE 6.1, 2002, pp. 5-30.
Radley, Alan and Bell, Susan E. “Artworks, collective experience and claims for social justice: The case of women living with breast cancer.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 29.3, 2007, pp.366-390.
Radley, A. , and Bell, Susan E . “Another way of knowing: Art, disease and illness experience”. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 15.3, 2011, pp. 219-222.