Jo Spence

Jo’s exhibition Beyond the Family Album was one of the first that the Cockpit Gallery made available for hire in 1980. As a member of the Hackney Flashers she contributed to the exhibition Who’s Still Holding the Baby? made in 1978 and shown in and toured by the Gallery in 1980.

She contributed to the exhibition Family Fantasy & Photography as a member of The Pollysnappers in 1981.

Feminism and Photography Course

In 1979 Jo Spence and Liz Heron with Andrew Dewdney and Martin Lister from the Cockpit ran the course. The reading list included Photography / Politics One which was about to be published.

Jo was a member of the Women’s Collective editorial group that produced Issue 10 of Schooling and Culture in 1981.

From 1982- 83 Jo was part time administrator of the Cockpit Gallery, a job that she shared with Sandy Bailey.

12 October 1982 Letter to the full time Cockpit staff.

4 November 1982. Ideas for the gallery

24 December 1982 Meeting notes.

9 September 1983 The role of the part time gallery worker.

12 October 1983 Jo’s observations on the job and Gloria taking up the post.

Jo’s next exhibition in the gallery was going to be a retrospective but was replaced by The Picture of Health? in 1986.

Jo with Rosy giving a talk about the exhibition The Picture of Health? in 1986

The launch of her book Putting Myself in the Picture in 1986

Retrospective at Cambridge Darkroom

Jo, Rosy, Jude and Claire in the gallery office celebrating something in 1986.

The National Photography Conference at Salford University April 3-5, 1987 was chaired by Alan Tomkins. Jo opened the proceedings with a paper titled “Questioning Documentary Practice” in which she argued for inclusivity and against “guilt tripping insults about hierarchies of oppression”. Some black delegates felt excluded by this, the opposite of what she had wanted. July’s Artists Newsletter covered the debate.