MICHELLE SANK:
Michelle Sank was born in South Africa and has been living in the UK since 1987. Her photographs have been exhibited and published extensively in England, Europe, Australia and Mexico, South Africa and the U.S.A and are held in collections in the UK and the USA.
She has undertaken numerous commissions for prominent galleries and magazines in Europe and the USA. Her practice is concerned with the notion of encountering, collecting, and re-telling. She is interested in creating sociological landscapes, interplays of human form and location that are significant in their visual, sociological and psychological nuances. She has three published books to date: Becoming (Published by Belfast Exposed Photography and Ffotogallery,). The Water’s Edge: Women on the Waterfront (Published by Liverpool University Press,). The Submerged (Published by Schilt)
I wanted to look at the works of Michelle Sank because she came over to Jersey in 2013 and work with the Jersey Archilse project. She was a resident of the island for around 6 months and worked with the archives as well as the local citizens of jersey to created a series of photos which she continues with once she left jersey. Her project ‘In My Skin’ focused on capturing individuals who were under the age of 25 and had been challenging there body image. Although this doesn’t obviously relate to my project it relates in the way that she focused on young people challenging their freedoms to express the way they present their body and as im focusing on the second wave of feminism which looks at how women thought for the freedom to express their body and femininity there is a loose connection between the two projects.
She is also a modern day photographer which adds variety to my artist reference as i don’t only want to focus on how photographers in the seventies portrayed women, i want to developed my projected into looking at the freedoms and limitations of the modern day female. Therefore Michelle Sank’s works are hugely helpful to me as she looks at how /body image is one of the biggest limitations for individuals in the modern day. I think it is really interesting to also contrast between the different limitations that females are experiencing since the twentieth century. As limitation on the political front are less evident now days however females internal thoughts are limiting them as body confidence as social consensus in Western society today is particularly focused on physical beauty and achieving and maintaining the “perfect” face and body. This constant pressure fed through the media has led to a growing number of young people becoming dissatisfied with themselves and trying different ways to achieve the ‘beautiful’. This desire for perfection has been largely disseminated through photographic imagery in magazines, adverts, television etc. In My Skin makes use of this image dissemination but turns it on its head showing a different side – the human stories behind the decisions of these young people to undergo the physical changes. In those transitioning it is about them achieving an inner beauty by finally freeing themselves from society’s expectations and becoming comfortable in their own skin.
Below is Sank’s Website which allows you to gain some further understanding of what her series ‘In My Skin’ is about aswell as view all the images in the series:
The images below are ones that i selected as photographs which most link to my project. Both subjects are young females, possibly teenagers who have expressed to Michelle Sank that they have challenged their body images. I chose to analyse these images further because of the camera angles that Sank has used as well as the body position, stance and positioning of the model. The way they look at the camera is also very telling about who they are and engages the audience in the images more.
Michelle Sank seemed to state why she photographed each indivual, however i was unable to find why this particular teenager was used in her project, however she must have had some form of issue with her body which has led her to try and change it in a certain way. I chose this image because the way she is lying on the bed seems to portray that she is confident working with the camera and who she is. She is dressed up in a nice dress with her hair done and this may symbolize that she wants to present herself nicely and possibly likes the attention she receives from people when dressing in this way. The individual gives us an idea that she is uninhibited about having her image taking and that she is a confident female, this is the type of personality i want to capture in my images. I want to portray women with confidence and that they are strong as this is the freedom which i consider the suffragettes and the waves of feminism gained for women.
The image shows a young female lying across her bed in a red dress against white bed sheets, this may be to show her femininity but also her new found freedom to express her sexuality. The way she is lying is slightly suggestive and i noticed that this is similar to how a lot of females began to be photographed in the seventies. the use of colour works well in this image as the red stand out strongly against the predominately white background. The lighting that Michelle Sank uses is also notable. A lot of her images she focuses on using the natural light coming in from the individuals windows however if there is not enough bright lighting she takes a light along with her to her shoots and sets it up directing the light onto the individual she is photographing. In this image the direction of light is coming from behind and slighting the the right of Sank and is therefore illuminating the subject so we can see them in a clear, slightly harsh light, where the bed in the foreground o the image is near to being over exposed. Framing in this image is created by the whiteness of the bed sheets as it frames around the subject making her in red in the middle stand out almost dramatically and in the audience face, this may be because Sank is trying to replicate the individuals personality. She is also right in the centre of the image breaking the rule of thirds making the image a statement and putting the issue of young people challenging there body image in the audiences face.