Book Launch Thursday 5 November: Re-Situating Francesca Woodman: Space, Place and Hybridity in Photography
Offering readers a nuanced perception of Francesca Woodman’s work while challenging long-held notions about her identity, this book provides a critical enquiry that foregrounds lived experience, materiality and gender.
Tuesday 5 November , 5:30–7:30pm , Grosvenor East Building
Join us at Manchester Metropolitan University for the launch of Dr Vanessa Longden’s new book, Space, Place and Hybridity in Francesca Woodman’s Photography, published as part of the Routledge History of Photography collection in 2026.
The event will introduce the book’s key ideas through short readings, followed by a broader panel discussion bringing together researchers and practitioners working across photography, visual culture, gender and spatial studies.
The discussion will explore different approaches to photography, place and environment, with an opportunity for the audience to contribute questions and reflections.
Space, Place and Hybridity in Francesca Woodman’s Photography
Offering readers a nuanced perception of Francesca Woodman’s work while challenging long-held psycho-biographical notions about her identity, this book provides an alternative critical enquiry that foregrounds lived experience, materiality and gender.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the study examines the complex relationship between the body and place in Woodman’s self-representational photography by combining the history of photography, gender studies and spatial studies.
The author provides a highly original visual analysis by situating Woodman’s practice within her wider cultural network, including Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Gordon Matta-Clark, Carrie Mae Weems and Agnes Denes. Highlighting the artist’s visual juxtapositions, the book emphasises the socio-political complexities of placemaking and challenges how readers think about the traditional art-historical canon.
The book will be of interest to those working or studying in photography, art history, visual culture, gender studies, urban and spatial studies, as well as anyone interested in Francesca Woodman’s work.
Panel
Professor Patrizia Di Bello:
Photography historian, researcher and academic at Birkbeck, specialising in the cultural, social and material histories of photography, with particular interests in women, feminism and photographic practices.
She is Editor-in-Chief of History of Photography and co-directs Birkbeck’s History and Theory of Photography Research Centre.
Dr Helen McGhie:
Practice-based researcher exploring photography, place and ecological relationships. Her current project, Entangled Light : A more than human photography studio, brings together photography, ecology and community through an exploration of an urban garden in winter.
Dr Vanessa Longden:
Dr Vanessa Longden is a researcher and Practice Research Manager at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research interests include embodiment and identity in visual culture, representations of decay, and architectural liminality. Space, Place and Hybridity in Francesca Woodman’s Photography is her first academic monograph.
The Woodman Family Foundation was established by Betty Woodman (1930–2018) and George Woodman (1932–2017) during their lifetimes. Love of beauty was at the heart of their lives and art. In this spirit, the Foundation is dedicated to stewarding the artistic legacies of Betty, George, and their daughter, Francesca Woodman (1958–1981). It maintains a substantial collection of artworks by each artist, from all periods and media, which are made available to museums, cultural institutions, scholars, and artists to further the appreciation and understanding of their work. The Foundation places their artworks in public collections and makes grants. The Foundation is also undertaking the preservation and cataloguing of their extensive archives to make this information accessible for scholarly study.
Designed Cover Image: Francesca Woodman From Space² (or Space²), 1976 c Woodman Family Foundation / DACS London
