Jo Spence

Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings opens an unfiltered window onto one of Britain's most influential and uncompromising photographers. Drawn from newly-discovered tapes, documents and unpublished photographs sourced from private and institutional collections, the material reveals a voice far more intimate, direct and searching than anything previously published. At its core are two extraordinary audio recordings: a seven-hour British Library interview in which Spence reflects with forensic clarity on her early life, her political formation, her experience of class and the responsibilities of documentary practice; and a deeply personal self-recorded tape - made only for herself - in which she thinks through work, illness, relationships and the conditions of her own life. Together they form the most sustained and revealing account of her inner world. The book also includes previously unseen images of the small London flat that served as her home, studio, workspace and meeting place: a space that helped shape her working life and her political imagination. Intense, candid and often devastatingly honest, The Unknown Recordings offers a sustained, unvarnished account of a working life shaped by precarious housing, chronic illness and low-paid, self-directed work - a unique insight into Jo Spence's mind, methods and convictions. And an essential resource for anyone interested in photography, feminism, working-class cultural history, and the ways in which personal experience and political commitment can be woven into a lifelong practice.