Jo Spence: The Picture of Health?

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In 1982, aged 48, photographer and activist Jo Spence was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in her left breast. Half an hour after this initial diagnosis, she was unceremoniously informed by her doctor that she was to be treated by the surgical removal of her breast in its entirety. After contending with him, she was able to negotiate a lumpectomy surgery that, although minimised trauma to her body, meant she lost one third of her breast and was left scarred. Armed with her camera, Spence documented her treatment in the care of the National Health Service and her subsequent journey into holistic healthcare.   Spence collated her research and photography – often undertaken in collaboration with others – into an exhibition entitled ‘Picture of Health: alternative approaches to breast cancer’, which debuted at the Cockpit Gallery, London in January 1986.

Spence’s photographic rebellion against mainstream imagery rallied  against the overarching narrative that, as breasts are solely for male enjoyment, breast cancer patients should focus on reconstructive surgeries or obtaining prostheses in order to be once more acceptable to the male gaze. Faith and Nygren deplore that ‘the experience of breast cancer is clearly influenced by the cultural emphasis on breasts as objects of male sexual interest and pleasure’.[1] Spence was also dismayed that the information pamphlets provided to breast cancer patients were ostensibly concerned with making what one has suffered socially acceptable; she notes advice was confined to ‘getting a prosthesis so your husband can go on loving you’ or ‘how to pretend you’re not ill to your family’. [2] The reality was, however, that approximately 20 per cent of patients still suffered severe anxiety, distress or depression one year after the removal of a breast, with intensive psychiatric therapy being required in 8 per cent of cases.[3]  

By comparison, in a self-portrait featured in ‘The Picture of Health?’, Spence stands wearing only a motorcycle helmet and, in seemingly deliberate defiance, her lumpectomy scar is the focal point of the image. She displays the scarring from her surgery unashamedly, refusing to pander to the male gaze that dictates the breast is a mere ‘sexual decoration’ or to avoid making the patriarchal viewer uncomfortable. She wears a motorcycle helmet which, although adds a humorous touch of the bizarre to the photograph, also evokes the brutality of the cancer treatment that Spence has undergone. Women often suffer a ‘fear of not being accepted, loss of self-esteem, loss of sexual identity and loss of ‘femininity’ post mastectomy’[7] and here Spence’s image educates on the realities of orthodox breast cancer treatment, forcing us to address the trauma her body has undergone.

By Helen Walker - Postgraduate student in History of Art and Photography

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[1] Faith and Nygren, ‘Breast Cancer: A Feminist View’, p.7

[2] Spence and Coward, ‘Body Talk?’, p.28

[3] Spence, ‘Body Beautiful or Body in Crisis’, p.12, quoting Patient Support Groups – the Mastectomy Association and the Breast Cancer Support Service (‘Cancer Care’, October 1985)