Jo Spence @ Richard Saltoun Gallery

 
‘The Final Project’, an exhibition of the work of British photographer Jo Spence (1934-1992), and produced in the last two years of her life before her death from leukaemia. Curated by David Campany, the show coincides with the BP Spotlight display of Spence’s work at Tate.
The Final Project looks to cultures that embrace and display death and dying in everyday life – Gothic imagery, Egyptian mummification rituals, or the smiling skeletons of Mexican dia de los muertos.  Spence “got to know death”. In place of her own deteriorating body she uses dolls and masks, her own equivalent to the Egyptian shabti dolls that accompanied the deceased to their after life.