Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin, full name Nancy Goldin who was born September 12, 1953 is an American photographer and activist. Her work regularly explores moments of intimacy, LGBT subcultures, and the opioid epidemic, and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Nan is an outsider by instinct and said to be nocturnal by nature and someone who lives on the edge of society where she creates her own rules. She revealed herself and name in the 1980s, visually recording her own stubborn life, and the often promiscuous lives of her circle of friends, which it included characters like addicts, hustlers, transvestites and prostitutes. Because of this, she redefined photography.
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman, real name Cynthia Morris Sherman, is an iconic self portrait photographer who famously became known due to her untitled film still, which was produced in 1977-80, where she put of guises and photographed herself in multiple different settings and resembled the mid 20th-century B movies.
She was always interested in identity as she stated that “I wish I could treat every day as halloween, and get dressed up and go out into the world as some eccentric character”
She probed the contractions of identity where she often played with visual and cultural codes of art, celebrity, gender and photography.
Shannon O’Donnell
Shannon is a women who completed A level studies and continued with a passion for photography and in fact has recently completed her BA (Hons), a degree in documentary photography at the university of South Wales.
During her 3-year degree she developed a number of projects based around gender identities and constructions.
Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun was born in 1894, Lucy Schwob in Nantes, France into a wealthy jewish family. Cahun was the whole package, she was an artist, photographer and writer. Till this day, she is known for her surreal self-portrait photography where she dressed up as different types of characters. Cahun explored and questioned gender, identity and subconscious of mind, particularly position of women. She did this through her art and in the way she spent her life.
Later, in her late teens/early twenties, Cahun had been looking for a gender neutral name. Soon she changed her name to Claude Cahun in 1918.
