Exhibition. Galleri CFF
Åsa Johannesson: The Queering of Photography
Åsa Johannesson
20230422 - 20230528
In the exhibition The Queering of Photography, we are presented with photographic works taken with a large format camera in a studio environment. In a visual language that oscillates between conventional and experimental expressions, Johannesson explores how the concept of ‘queer’ can be used as a critical approach to photographic representation.
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The exhibition The Queering of Photography consists of photographic works taken with a large format camera in a studio environment. With a visual language that oscillates between conventional and experimental expressions, Johannesson explores how the concept of ‘queer’ can be used as a critical approach to photographic representation. The works were created between 2015 and 2022 in London and Rome. Together with the LGBTQ people she photographs, body language and gazes are tested. With this sometimes clear and sometimes subtle play, Johannesson questions the portrait as a genre and photography as a medium.
The title The Queering of Photography – ‘the queering of photography’ – refers not only to poses in front of the camera but also to photographic aesthetics and technique. The work Turn shows a twisted neck, sometimes half a face in soft pastel colors. Some of the works depict Roman statues that, through the black and white aesthetic, have been transformed into strange photographic creatures. In the installation Skin, material and three-dimensionality have created a queer visual language in itself.
Åsa Johannesson studied photography at the Royal College of Art (PhD, MA) and the University of Westminster (BA) in London, UK. Through her artistry, she explores the relationship between queer identity, representation, and photographic materiality, primarily through photography, installations, and poetry.
Åsa’s works have in recent years been shown at Queer Britain, Copeland Gallery and Dyson Gallery in London, as well as at FutureLab in Shanghai, China. Åsa received her doctorate in 2019 with her dissertation The Queering of Photography: A Generative Encounter (Royal College of Art). Her upcoming poetry collection The Sitter and monograph Queer Methodology for Photographic Practice and Theory (Routledge) will be published in 2024. Åsa lives and works in London and in her hometown of Växjö.
