Collaborative Portraiture brings together work by Magnum photographers Carolyn Drake, Bieke Depoorter and Susan Meiselas to present different creative strategies to portray female subjects. In each series on display, the sitters have been invited to present themselves on their own terms, to perform, play and control their representation in front of the lens.
Portraiture has always played an important role within Magnum’s documentary photography, and its members have continually investigated and rethought the process of photographic storytelling. One component within this has been to democratise the act of photographing, shifting the emphasis from “taking” photographs of their subject, to a collaborative exchange that incorporates multiple points of view. At a time when female representation has become increasingly politicised, this exhibition takes three bodies of work, one historical and two contemporary, where portraiture becomes a process, through long-term commitment to a subject and reassessment of the image through time.
Magnum Print Room
63 Gee Street
London
EC1V 3RS
Public Opening Hours: Wednesday to Friday – 11.30am to 4pm