Woman Reading a Possession Order

• Object:

  Photograph

• Place of origin:

  Hackney (made)

• Date:

  1997 (made)

• Artist/Maker:

  Hunter, Tom (photographer)

• Materials and Techniques:

  Dye destruction print (Ilfochrome)

“Every time you saw a picture of a squatter or a traveller, it was to go with a story about how antisocial they were. I just wanted to take a picture showing the dignity of squatter life – a piece of propaganda to save my neighbourhood.”

This photograph was taken in Tom Hunter’s home street in Hackney. Residents that made up the community, including himself, were fighting eviction as squatters. The title of the series comes from the wording used in eviction orders. The postures and gestures reference Vermeer’s paintings and set out to give status and dignity to his community. Hunter captures with acute sensitivity, the zeitgeist of the 1990s and life in London at that time.

-In Johannes Vermeer Painting titled ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’  the open window is on one level intended to represent “the woman’s longing to extend her domestic sphere” beyond the constraints of her home and society, while the fruit “is a symbol of extramarital relations.” The letter that she holds is a love letter either planning or continuing her illicit relationship. Tom Hunter re-imagines this image in current times showing a woman reading a possession order that tells her she has to leave her home.

“The balance is what I find most interesting: the friction between “is it staged or is it documentary”? I love documentary photography and I love staged photography, but I find the latter too unbelievable, as it becomes a bit too fantastical.”

Hunter uses natural lighting to hit the side of the woman’s face allowing for emphasis of her emotional state. Using a large-format camera, “which really captures that light”, he set the exposure for about a second. The ISO that Tom uses appears to be low as the image is mainly darker in tone. This is used as an advantage to give focus to where the light hits, the woman and the baby.

Creating paintings and creating photographs are two different processes. Often a painting presents what was truly seen at that moment in time but a photograph can be manipulated to show people what they want to see. Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original.

With the picture getting noticed by the council, Tom Hunter’s community managed to save the houses.