Ewen Spencer. Image from 2016.bpb.org.uk
The beauty and fashion industries both feed off of radical photography. Yet, these subversive images are the same ones creating and perpetuating norms associated with gender, identity and sexuality. It’s a potent medium that has been used to cultivate the unattainable beauty standards that we‘ve come to understand as style “truths”. Now in its seventh edition, the Brighton Photo Biennial attempts to demolish these bylaws with “Beyond the Bias – Reshaping Image”.
To mark this occasion we take a look at some of the artists who are changing the aesthetics of fashion photography and with it, the politics of style.
Ewen Spencer. Image from photoworks.com
Ewen Spencer
Ewen Spencer will present his celebrated images of youth and music culture from around the world at the Brighton Photo Biennial. Having spent two decades shooting for style magazines and the music industry, his newly commissioned work “Kick over the statues” highlights youth tribes traversing the streets of Liverpool as well as London for the 2016 Notting Hill Carnival.
Olivia Arthur and Bharat Sikka. Image from bjp-online.com
Olivia Arthur and Bharat Sikka
For the first time, photographers Olivia Arthur and Bharat Sikka will showcase their documentary collaboration that explores personal and public aspects of identity for the Photo Biennial. Working with members of the LGBTQ+ communities in Mumbai and Brighton, their work conveys the body in relation to the spectrum of gender, sexuality and fantasy that exists in these two cultures from two vastly different standpoints.
Hobbes Ginsberg. Images from vice.com
Hobbes Ginsberg
Gender identity is inherently a part of Hobbes Ginsberg’s practice and self representation. However while Ginsberg – who identifies as they or she– notes that their images are important for queer visibility in the fashion industry. Therefore, it is important that they are viewed through a broader lens than simply gender. Ginsberg’s grunge imbued, glamorous self portraiture documents their personal journey in the tradition of Catherine Opie and through the framing of an internet phenomena– the selfie.
Shantrelle P Lewis. Image from shantrelleplewis.com
Shantrelle P Lewis
”The Dandy Lion Project” is the vision of Shantrelle P Lewis. A body of photographic work that showcases global Black Dandyism, the artist will premiere her “women dandys” at the event. Much of P. Lewis’ recent research-based work is concerned with Dutch Caribbean and the African Diaspora at-large, and she is currently directing and producing a film titled “The Black Dutchman”.
Emmanuel Olunkwa. Image from crackmagazine.net
Emmanuel Olunkwa
Emmanuel Olunkwa is interested in the evolution of “friendships and relationships,” predominantly of millennial stars from minority groups in the art and fashion worlds. Still only 22 years old, Olunkwa is accustomed to sourcing subjects from the profiles that populate his social media feeds on Facebook and Instagram and then developing a bond with them in real life.