exhibitions
off-site projects archive 2007

‘Miss World’ Project
30 June - 13 July 2007
Northam Road Gallery, Southampton

In celebration of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2007, John Hansard Gallery worked in partnership with Southampton City Council Communities Team to host the Miss World Project. This brought groups of women together from different local communities to explore notions of female beauty, from both cultural and personal perspectives.

Miss World Project participant photographed by Kristianne Drake.

Working alongside Southampton-based artist Kristianne Drake, participants began the day looking at and discussing photographic portraits of ‘ideal women’ in the Gallery’s Fig. exhibition, by artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. This discussion and gallery tour helped to inform participants’ ideas and how their own photographs were subsequently taken, which considered what women find beautiful in others (such as strength and wisdom). From this discussion, participants were shown pictures of past ‘Miss World’ winners, looking at how conventional ideals of women have changed in terms of diversity, but still remain culturally and socially bound.

After learning the basics of photography and photographic portraiture using digital and SLR cameras, participants used props to create images of one another. The main prop used was a Princess Tiara, specially loaned to the Gallery for the project from Swarovski Crystals UK.

The exhibition features photographs taken by participants and Kristianne Drake. These photographs will subsequently be exhibited within different locations in public buildings across Southampton later in July 2007.

Supported by John Hansard Gallery, Southampton City Council with assistance from Swarvoski Crystals UK, the WEA Clovelly Centre and the Artists Group.

The John Hansard Gallery would like to thank the following participants whose work features in this exhibition:
Dee, Mrs G. Kaur and daughter, Harjit, Jaswinder, Jenny, Krishna, Mabushra and Sushila.

Nation-building and photography as propaganda have always gone hand-in-hand. With India’s Independence a sympathetic, paternalistic mould of photography gained prominence in the sub-continent.

Sixty years later, Indian photographers are breaking out of the mould. The modes of production have changed. Digital technology is on the Indian High Street. Photography in India is finally shedding its Third World humanistic face of toiling under-classes to bring us very real images of what daily life is like for many.

Through new photography the home, even a street for the homeless, is being more objectively observed, analysed and revealed. This exhibition showcases four photographers, Sandesh Bhandare, Gauri Gill, Kushal Ray and Vicky Roy whose work explores what constitutes the Indian family – and questions what’s worth saving and what’s worth discarding.

Relative Values is curated by Sunil Gupta and Radhika Singh, organised by John Hansard Gallery.
With special thanks to Fotomedia, New Delhi. Thanks also to Nicholas Thompson and the Salaam Baalak Trust, and University of Southampton Print Centre.

The exhibition is shown in conjunction with The Independence of India and Pakistan, 1947, Special Collections Gallery, Hartley Library, 16 - 27th July 2007, marking the sixtieth anniversary of power on the sub-continent. The Hartley Library is located on University Road, opposite the Students’ Union, and is open Monday to Saturday 9am - 9pm, closed Sunday.