"Jo Spence was one of Britain''s pioneering photographers. Born in Wembley of working-class parents, she worked for many years as a studio photographer. Her political concerns led her to documentary photography and she was a founder member of the Photography Workshop. Her life changed at 46 when she began a degree at the Polytechnic of Central London in the theory and practice of photography, and with the discovery of her breast cancer. Despite this, and through her struggle to find ways to tackle cancer and to share the experience with others, she developed new ways of using photography and new ways of living that affected her critical approach to a range of photographic projects. Jo Spence published and exhibited widely during her career, and her radical and innovative work has influenced a generation of practitioners and students of photography." (http://jospence.com/JoSpencesLife.aspx)
As a feminist, Jo Spence's work explores the body, in particular the female body; HER body. The female body in most media is seen as a passive object, an attention for the male gaze. Jo Spence's work contradicts this view, and she uses the female form to explore taboos, such as her mother, becoming her father, gender stereotypes and her illness.
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