Claude Cahun, born Lucy Schwob was a French photographer, sculptor, and writer. She is best known for her self-portraits in which she assumes a variety of personas, including dandy, weight lifter, aviator, and doll. The Jersey Heritage Trust collection represents the largest repository of the artistic work of Cahun who moved to the Jersey in 1937 with her stepsister and lover Marcel Moore. She was imprisoned and sentenced to death in 1944 for activities in the resistance during the Occupation. However, Cahun survived and she was almost forgotten until the late 1980s, and much of her and Moore’s work was destroyed by the Nazis, who requisitioned their home. Cahun died in 1954 of ill health (some contribute this to her time in German captivity) and Moore killed herself in 1972. They  are both buried together in St Brelade’s churchyard.

“Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.”

In this image, Cahun has shaved her head and is dressed in men’s clothing. She once explained: “Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.”1 (Claude Cahun, Disavowals, London 2007, p.183)

mood board:

mind maps:

Her images:

where I will take the shoot:

my plan:

For this shoot I am going to use my sister and/or one of my friends as the models as I think they will look as similar to the ones in Rae’s images. I am going to use an empty room in my house, an art or dance studio or a stair case/ stairwell using props like a mirror and camera to get them to look like hers. I may also go out to the cliff paths or bunkers to try and re create the two of her images that are outside. Hopefully I will make the images look eerie and simple like her are as I think he images are very effective.

Identity Politics

Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities.

The term was first used by the Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980, in 1977. It was used all over by the early 1980s, and in the ensuing decades has been employed in various cases with radically different connotations depending upon the term’s context. It has gained currency with the emergence of social activism, manifesting in various dialogues within the feminist, American civil rights, and LGBT movements, disabled groups, as well as multiple nationalist and postcolonial organizations, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement.

Cultural Wars

A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values. Contemporary politics in the United States is often described as involving a “culture war.” The central claim of those describing a culture war is that the major political cleavage in contemporary American politics is no longer economic class, race, gender, geographical region, or any of the many “social structural” differences that divide our population. Rather, the idea is that a major realignment of sensibilities and controversial issues has occurred since the 1960s, and now the body politic is rent by a cultural conflict in which values, moral codes, and lifestyles are the primary objects of contention. Issues such as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and drug use are the typical points of culture wars contention; others have used the phrase to discuss issues of multiculturalism, diversity, and school curricula. Religious commitments, symbols, and groups have been strongly connected to culture wars politics.

In her photographic practice Clare explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body, usually the artists’ own.

Recent projects have engaged with site specificity, involving works that are captured and displayed within the same environment. A central interest within her practice is the exploration of performance documentation, specifically how the camera can act as a collaborator, rather than mute witness, to the performer.

In this image from Clare Rae the focal point of the image is the lady on the chair. The rule of thirds is used to centre the lady in the middle of the image, because there is nothing else in the image it means that we are only looking at the woman. The room being bland and empty gets us to think about the emotions that the lady may feeling such as lonely, sad and maybe lost. The dull light coming from the window creates a sad solemn feeling in the image. It may also having something to do with the feminist theory as it says ‘Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body’. This can relate to the image above as the woman is stood leaning in an awkward position.