Abstract

Jo-Ana visually describes diary entries made by Jo, a 30 something recovered anorexic, throughout her period of illness.

Key events before, during and after her illness are recorded. Presented as a series of still life compositions, they offer the viewer insight into Jo’s struggle with anorexia.

Items of food consumed by Jo are portrayed, the nutritional value corresponding to her transition from health, to illness, and on to recovery.

Her thoughts are displayed alongside text she found inspirational. Everyday objects offer a glimpse of her interests and her personality.

Examining an alternative relationship with food and played out on a very small stage, it is the story of what happens when food stops being a friend.

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There were two primary objectives for Jo-Ana.

The first being to ensure that the voice of the participant, Jo, was clearly heard, and the second being to present the images in a clean website with supplemental text and images which enriched the viewing experience rather than detracting from it.

Have I been successful in achieving these objectives?

Sutherst (2018) reviews as follows:

‘The words from the diary are the reminders that this is a real person’s account of their road to recovery. The inclusion and placement of personal items in each image remind us that there is more to an anorexia sufferer than them just not eating. They have lives and interests like everyone else and they are more than just the disease – it does not define who they are, it is something they are suffering with.’

Clear confirmation, then, that the first aim for Jo-Ana has been achieved.

‘Each image is expertly showcased on the responsive website. The style is understated and does not intrude on the viewer’s experience of work. Viewing the sequence of images of food and pages from Jo’s diary, the visual narrative is one of despair through to hope (with a multitude of emotion in between). The viewer starts to appreciate the mental distortions that anorexics have in their relationship to food. The unhealthy thoughts recorded in the diary are sympathetically and cleverly reflected in the accompanying food images.’

Clear confirmation, then, that the second aim for Jo-Ana has also been achieved.

Such confirmation can only be viewed very positively as I not only look to extend the range of surfaces across which Jo-Ana is presented, but also assess the feasibility of future project themes.

Jo Sutherst’s full review can be read here.

Reference

Sutherst, J. (2018). ‘Final Major Project: Review of Philip Morris’s ‘Jo-Ana’ Project’. josutherstphotographycom [online]. Available at: https://josutherstphotography.com/2018/08/23/final-major-project-review-of-philip-morriss-jo-ana-project/ (accessed Thursday 23 August 2018)

Visual anthropology is the graphical and written representation of a group’s culture. It is concerned with the study of the production and consumption of visual forms of communication.

Anthropology, however, is concerned with the study of humans, human behaviour and societies both past and present, whilst social anthropology is the study of societies norms and values.

Jo-Ana, then, is not an example of visual anthropology, moreover it is anthropology presented visually – recording what were once the private thoughts of an individual, making them available as a source of information for future reference.

Spitz, 2013. Mom’s Vacation

Melissa Spitz’s You Have Nothing to Worry About describes the tumultuous relationship between her and her mother.

From her earliest memory, her mother has suffered from mental illness and substance abuse. The diagnosis of her condition frequently changing from one of alcoholism to dissociative identity disorder.

This has led to the breakdown of her parents’ marriage, and a relationship between mother and daughter which is resentment filled.

You Have Nothing to Worry About is described by Spitz as a ‘complex and difficult body of work’, having images which, she informs us, are ‘simultaneously upsetting and encouraging, honest and theatrical, loving and hateful’.

For me, the images have a richness, but also have a repellent quality. I oscillate between wanting to view the images on one hand, and not wanting to view them on the other. The images in this series contain a punctum (Barthes, 1980), a detail which ‘pricks or bruises’ the viewer’s consciousness, evoking a sense of emotion.

Spitz’s work is significant to me for the way in which it is approached.

Firstly, she has considerable self-awareness of how she interacts as a photographer with her subject

“There was never really a conscious decision of going to photograph my mentally ill mother,” says Spitz, yet, in the shadow of the stress, her lens became a mechanism through which she communicated with her family. “It was the easiest way to give me a reason to go home but still be separated from the situation, via the physical act of putting a camera up in front of my face,” she explains (Richter, 2015).

Secondly, Spitz appreciates the impact of her intervention as a photographer upon the subject.

I am fully aware that my mother thrives on being the center of attention and that, at times, our portrait sessions encourage her erratic behaviour’ (Spitz, 2018).

Spitz is in a position to influence. How she approaches one moment in a shoot can affect what happens for the rest of that session, how she approaches a shoot can determine the way in which future shoots proceed.

Jo-Ana was different. The moments in time upon which the still life images were based were already fixed, immutable. The subject’s thoughts were already captured in a diary and could not be influenced by the act of my photography. Each outcome had already been determined.

I propose a future project investigating alcoholism. This will be different again, placing me closer to the situation in which Spitz finds herself – a position of being able to influence the perceptions held by subject’s regarding their circumstances.

Molloy (2018) states that a key question when producing participatory works is ‘what difference does it make having me being part of the story?’

Mannay (2016) seems to suggest an answer to this question, suggesting that ‘consideration is given to the relationships between participants and researchers, and acknowledge that even when the ‘intrusive presence’ of the researcher steps out of the site of visual data production this leaves a space that is often filled by the ‘intrusive presence’ of others’.

Pauwels (2011) suggests that participatory productions place the social scientist in the position of participatory facilitator, and that research is conducted ‘with’ and not ‘on’ participants.

I think that, for me, this is the point to take away from Molloy’s presentation – to engage without influencing, to present a true and fair view.  In essence, ensuring that conceptual and practical filters which can be applied as a result of pre-knowledge and associated underlying assumptions (Walmsley and Johnson, 2003) are eliminated.

References:

Barthes, Roland (1980). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill & Wang

Mannay, Dawn (2016), Visual, Narrative and Creative Research Methods: Application, Reflection and Ethics. Oxon: Routledge

Molloy, Caroline (2018). ‘Guest Lecture (Research) – Caroline Molloy’. Lecture to PHO705 17/18 [online]. Available at: https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/86/pages/guest-lecture-research-caroline-molloy?module_item_id=8346 (accessed: Friday 23 March 2018)

Pauwels, L. (2011), ‘An Integrated Conceptual Framework for Visual Social Research’, in E. Margolis and L. Pauwels (eds) The Sage Handbook of Visual Research methods. London: Sage

Richter, T. (2015). ‘This woman documents her mother’s battle with mental illness’. Dazeddigital.com [online]. Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/25675/1/this-woman-documents-her-mother-s-battle-with-mental-illness (accessed: Monday 25 June 2018)

Spitz, M. (2018). ‘You Have Nothing to Worry About’. Melissaspitz.com [online]. Available at: http://www.melissaspitz.com/you-have-nothing-to-worry-about/z87g2l8cgzvsfsedduq4v1chwd1hqg (accessed: Monday 25 June 2018)

Walmsley, J. and Johnson, K. (2003), Inclusive Research with People with Learning Disabilities: Past, Present and Futures. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Popova, 2015. Untitled

The first Labour Treatment for Profilactorium (LTP) was established in Kazakhstan 1967 and offered alcoholics and drug addicts rehabilitation in return for forced labour.

Operated along the lines of a prison, residents could be incarcerated for periods lasting from 6 months to 2 years. There was no right of appeal. There was no crime.

Should the residents have one, their home is rented out to meet the costs of their treatment. Any children are placed in care.

The LTP system met with strong protest from human rights campaigners in the USSR, and was closed down by Yeltsin in 1993 under perestroika. However, some LTPs still remain in operation in Belarus, Turkmenistan, and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

Irina Popova is a documentary photographer and curator. Her book Welcome to the LTP is a journey through the Soviet-era passageways of despair of one Belarusian ‘workhouse for substance abusers’. She is the first photographer to be allowed access to such an establishment.

Draconian in concept, Draconian in practice – the LTPs are not an investment in people, instead there appears to be two objectives behind the system. Firstly, to remove the problem away from mainstream society, out of sight is out of mind. Secondly, to beat the addiction out of the residents with a proverbial stick.

The LTPs are a chimera of the penal system, being described by human rights activists in the USSR as ‘punitive psychotherapy’ – prison meets rehab.

Popova’s Welcome to the LTP conveys a strong message of not only addiction, but also abject poverty and loneliness.

Her images have a distinct richness to them. Which is in stark contrast to her subjects and their surroundings in Welcome to the LTP.

Grimy walls, dingy corridors, stark rooms – the outlook at every turn is dismal, hopeless, bleak. Popova’s images capture an infrastructure in decay, a system that was never going to work. The base level at which the decay starts, and the magnitude of that decay suggest that there was never any interest in the system, nor the people who would go to these centres. The system failing the system.

My projects to-date have explored alternative relationships with food. These have been interesting and rewarding projects to work on.

I feel that as my photography has developed, so has my interest in giving a voice to the socially disadvantaged through my practice.

Taking my three most recent projects in the order they were produced, this trend can be seen clearly: the cravings experienced by an athlete preparing for a competition, the interrelationship between diet and mental health, and the diaries of an anorexic.

With reference to the latter, eating disorders are a conveniently forgotten disease. Periodically there is a news article informing us that a celebrity has an eating disorder and the issue becomes topical for a very brief time, before being forgotten again.

Eating disorders are highly stigmatised. They are something that the general public are largely ignorant of, many believing them to be a lifestyle choice. The reality is that eating disorders are a serious mental illness. Some individuals are susceptible, they carry within them a ticking time bomb. For such individuals, family and societal pressures are merely triggers which stimulate an underlying condition.

Alcoholism shares some similarities with eating disorders. It is perceived by much of the general public as being a lifestyle choice, whilst in reality being a serious mental illness. There is much stigma attached to alcoholism. It destroys careers, homes, families, people.

Building on the success of Jo-Ana, my next project will investigate alcoholism. Popova’s work is a fascinating documentary, in view of my plan, however, it takes on new relevance.

Jo-Ana took me out of my comfort zone, and that was necessary for me to develop as a photographer. My next project needs to do the same, but in different ways.

My photography already has a definite characteristic style – close up, point of view still life compositions beautifully lit by natural light. I do not intend to deviate from this. However, I think my practice will develop, both technically and creatively, if I include some environmental shots in my next project. Popova’s Welcome to the LTP is a benchmark as to how this can be done.