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Curious Spirits Sarah Howgate, who is the author of this extract has been a Contemporary Curator at the National Portrait Gallery since 2001. One of her key roles was managing the gallery commissions. But before joining this Gallery she worked for other various galleries where she would set up new spaces specializing in British figurative art.   Her research interests are in contemporary portraiture and within this type of genre, she has particularly been interested in the self-portraits. The extract is about the ‘Curious Spirits’, which was an exhibition based on the self-portraits of French Surrealist artists Claude Cahun and British contemporary artist Gillian Wearing. This exhibition particularly focused on these of self-image through the medium of photography and how this explores themes around identity and gender. A lot of it was associated with art movements, and how art flows especially with the way a self-portrait can be produced. I would say that the readi...

Marsha Meskimmon is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History and Theory. She finished a PhD on Women Artists and the Neue Sachlichkeit at the University of Leicester in 1992. In this article, it mentions about a lot of things, that cause deformities in a woman, one part talking about a cancer patient going through medical treatment and, about how a woman’s body changes due to this horrific illness. The writer Jo Spence, also the cancer patient says, that she wrote the word, ‘Monster’ across her chest due the fact that is how she thought of herself as a cancer patient. Simply saying she is monstrous, to the view of other people. Jo Spence and Rosy Martin who have been mentioned in this article I would say both create works of phototherapy, which often included small texts carefully chosen.   It makes us think that in two different ways; Political and Contemporary. Political meaning, that the culture and specifically our culture emphasizes on the ideal image of f...

Tim Young is a professor at Nottingham Trent University Centre for Travel Writing Studies. He undertakes teaching and several of research in the areas of the African-American Writing, Literature of the United States and travel writing. He has been named the pioneer in the development of travel writing studies, and no wonder why as he has been researching this subject for more than a quarter of a century. The chapter, itself is called, “Inner Journeys’, but throughout the book, it's also split into two different subtitles of, “ Something of Importance to myself”, and “ No bank managers”. The book mostly mentions about Graham’s Greene’s, ‘Journey Without Maps, and it mostly focuses on his time in Africa. Furthermore in the chapter, Tim Young starts to talk about other people’s writings on travel such as Diski and Wheeler’s take on it, comparing all of them together throughout the book. The reading connects to the theme of the week, which is, “Mobility”, as it talks about t...

Lauren Elkin is a writer, critic and an incurable wanderer. She has written many essays on various books and cultures, which have appeared in several publications such as, The New York Times or The Guardian etc.   She tends to write about women’s writing, experimental poetics, and visual culture, etc. especially photography. The reading I read, which is from a chapter I read under the name of, ‘Flaneuse-ing’, is originally from a book called, ‘Flaneuse; Women walk the City.’ The reading is about how women walk the city as stated in the title above but not just about that, it also talks about how these women found their personal freedom and inspiration through walking these streets on foot. I would say that this reading is connected to the theme, ‘STREET’, due to the idea that it is all about how women observe the city and how the author believes that woman in general can also be flaneur’s which is a term that means, ‘ A man who strolls around observing society’. This i...