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Misbehaving Bodies: Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery

Past
  • Free
  • Exhibition
Photograph of the Misbehaving Bodies exhibition at Wellcome Collection, showing a wide view of the space. in the foreground a young man and woman discuss a video piece projected onto a large screen. In the background an other young man and woman look at the artworks that are displayed on the wall.
Misbehaving Bodies exhibition, Thomas SG Farnetti. Source: Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

An invigorating – if ultimately heartbreaking – experience.

The Guardian

Our free exhibition brings together two artists who explore the representation of chronic illness and reclaim the idea of ‘misbehaving bodies’.

Influential photographer Jo Spence’s (1934–92) work documents her diagnosis of breast cancer and subsequent healthcare regime throughout the 1980s. Her raw and confrontational photography is shown alongside Oreet Ashery’s (b. 1966) award-winning miniseries ‘Revisiting Genesis’, 2016. Ashery’s politically engaged work explores loss and the lived experience of chronic illness in the digital era. In October 2019, a new commission by Ashery, exploring the recent death of her father, will be added. 

Follow your own path through this exhibition, challenge your understanding of ‘misbehaving’ or ‘untypical’ bodies, and reflect on how illness shapes identity. 

In this exhibition