On the 20/5/20 we had Laia Abril come along to our virtual uni and give a lecture and tutorial to us. In Laia’s lecture she spoke specifically about her work titled On Abortion which features in her series called A History of Misogyny which currently has four chapters: On Abortion, On Rape, On Mass Hysteria and Menstruation Myths. Abril’s work consists of hard hitting subjects, specifically targeting the injustices women have received throughout history and issues women continue to deal with. Given the broad and in depth nature of the themes, Abril decided to just talk about one which was On Abortion which depicts the history of abortion and the damaging effects the lack of abortion laws has had on women around the world. What made Abril’s talk so astounding was that she didn’t shy away from the harsh realities of the history of abortion and used real testaments to explain this. I think this talk taught me that if you’re going to tackle an extremely sensitive topic you must show the realities of that, whether it be too harsh or not. However, Abril did touch on the fact that if you are going to do that, then you obviously have to be very conscious of the people that you are involving in that project. For instance, many of the women involved in On Abortion had to partake in illegal activities, just to get them themselves the necessary treatment to carry out the abortions. Therefore, Abril had to be very careful not to expose them necessarily, which is not easy when publishing your work, because you hope that it will be shown to the masses. This really puts in to perspective the importance of considering your audience, and dissemination of your work. Listening to Abril talk she really emphasised the importance of audience and research, which is something that has been key throughout the past three visiting speakers. They really couldn’t come at a better time for us third years because we are really having to carefully consider our research and where we hope our own projects will take us after university.
During the tutorial, Laia gave some great advice to me for my project and the routes i should take it in the future. Due to my project focusing on such a broad subject matter and because of the developments it has made since the start, she suggests that it might be a good idea to have separate chapters to the body of work. For example, Abril suggested that in the future i might want to just explore my mum for one chapter, then explore women for another, my own personal journey etc. Overall i think this is a very wise idea, and something i had also been considering, just because i feel like i have so much i want to explore under the overall subject, that it might be too much to pack into one body of work.
It was really amazing to hear from another strong woman in photography, especially one dealing with such important topics, and it has really inspired me to push my beliefs. Laia Abril was a great photographer to end our run of visiting speakers at Bath Spa and i can’t express how important these talks have been over the past three years. They have taught me that photography isn’t easy and that you have to fight for what you want in the industry but we can do it. They have also taught me that at the end of the day we’re all photographers in the same industry and that no matter how much acknowledgement they have gotten over the years, they’re still normal people dealing with the same issues we all deal with. Although that seems obvious, its still comforting to hear that from the people you respect the most.
