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JACK MOYSE
Location
Swansea
Media
Photography
Title of Work
You & I
Bio
Jack Moyse is a photographer and artist based in Swansea, South Wales. His practice focuses on societal issues such as the demonisation of migrants, ableism, and mental health. Jack has been invited to speak at a number of colleges, universities, photo festivals and symposia, including University of South Wales, University of Wales Trinity St David Swansea, Carmarthen School of Art and the Trauma Porn Symposium in Bristol (supported by Bristol Photography Research Group). In April this year he was also invited to exhibit at and contribute to the Healing Through Photography conference at Belfast Exposed.
When a friend suggested that photography could be the antidote to my struggles to identify with a sense of self, I felt like I should explore. I began by taking self portraits, focusing on the elements of my body I felt the least amount of love for or which reminded me most of my differences. The process slowly became a cathartic ritual, performed in solitude. It forced me to confront elements of myself that I’d long ignored, providing space to consider things I’d masked for the previous eight years.
The indexicality that I believed self-portraiture offered was critical in creating a safe space within which I could produce work. It acted as an opening, a foot in the previously locked door through which other ideas have snuck. Although it remains a critical element of the series, the parameters for work created have widened significantly since those beginnings. As time passed, the project developed from merely questioning my relationship with my physical self to encapsulating more theoretical questionings of the struggles that come with being disabled and the ableist attitudes that underpin them. The projects become far more rounded regarding representing the lived disabled experience, spanning aspects such as relationships, parenthood, mental health and purpose.
Despite clear improvements in how people living with disabilities are treated by their able-bodied peers, it's disheartening to see the prejudiced conditions we still contend with. Limited exposure to normalised disability is partially responsible for shaping the public perspective. Normalising disability requires telling mundane stories, creating grey tones between polarised, stereotypical black and white representations.
