Posing the body

Adland I
Photographer: David Stewart. Models: me and others, including Nicola Griffin, also from Grey 

I have been quite busy recently, travelling back and forth to Italy  but the 'Posing the body: Stillness, Movement and Representation' symposium was, for me, the highlight of last week.
I came across the event quite by chance and was immediately intrigued by its rationale,  an exploration of the art of posing, something that no one seems to be paying  much attention to, as the organisers Rebecca Arnold, Katherine Faulkner and Katerina Pantelides, Courtauld Institute, and Eugénie Shinkle, University of Westminster, claim.
Yet, as they also rightly claim, "posing has been central to art, dance and sculpture for thousands of years". The current interest in fashion modelling has also brought posing to the fore, so there is a need to discuss it.
I have been involved with posing not only as a model (or even as a dancer of sort).  The study of posing and movement was an important part of my doctoral work, as I studied the representation of dance poses and dance movements in the iconography of Javanese temples of the classical period, with cross-reference to India. I focused precisely on issues of modes and also technologies of representation and their relationship with bodies and subjects, symbolic meaning and embodied action, as indeed this symposium aimed to discuss through a range of multi-disciplinary papers.
A session I very much looked forward to was the panel discussion with fashion model Jan de Villeneuve, acclaimed photographer Julian Marshall and Caroline Hamilton, dance and costume historian.

From one of the presentations at Posing the Body

The papers were indeed most interesting with sessions on posing, directing and moving; art, fashion and sculpture; movement and dance; bodies, gender and politics.
I learnt a lot, definitely, even though I had to miss a session as I had a previous commitment that I could not postpone, so I left at some point to return for the final session and the panel discussion. I enjoyed tremendously the paper by Felice McDowell, associate lecturer at London College of Fashion, who talked about posing from the point of view of the fashion models of the 1960s, whose autobiographical writings she has been  examining. I also enjoyed the paper presented by Peter K. Andersson from Lund University who discussed posing and  street photography in the 19th century. I loved the examples he showed, I felt a little uncomfortable though at the emphasis on spontaneity for indeed the technology of the time allowed very little spontaneity and the photographer would certainly be staging most shots. But I may be wrong, here, my involvement in photography is amateurial, though I use medium format analogue cameras, heavy to carry and set up. Imagine how cumbersome the old ones were!
That the photographer is still in charge is also a truth today , in fashion and commercial shoots. I know that because I live it. Actually I would say that today, it is increasingly the client that has the final say on what is going to be used, and this does have an impact on  both model and photographer as embodied subjects.  But the inclusion of practitioners such as Jan de Villeneuve and Julian Marshall was important in that it gave an opportunity to marry the critical enquiry to the realities of practice.

Adland II by David Stewart

Also fascinating were Caroline Hamilton's remarks on the fact that dance costumes have to be seen on the bodies of the performers, which may present problems in the context of a curatorial display. I guess this can be counterbalanced by having films and photographs accompanying the display. Indeed I find that all clothes, not just costumes, need to be seen on a body, hence the need for models at a fashion show.

Indonesian models before a show for brand Sejauh Mata Memandang 

I was a little saddened by the fact that the symposium had a strong Eurocentric thrust, in that it omitted other experiences of posing. It came up in one of the questions from the attendees, when someone questioned the photographic representation of  black moving bodies, but it was not elaborated upon. I would have also expected some historical grounding. The understanding and knowledge of poses has been part and parcel of the art historian's toolbox, through a study of iconography - indeed it was my interest in Panofskyan iconography and iconology that led me to further studies in the field. So the study of posing is not so new, perhaps, but what is definitely new is this growing interest in the cultural significance of posing. Indeed the advent of social media has turned everyone into an expert poser, as can be seen from the proliferation of  instagram accounts worldwide - when I was in Indonesia doing my research on fashion and women, last winter, I realised that almost everyone I met had an instagram account!
So I definitely welcome events such as this symposium and hope that these discussions will be taken further and be perhaps more inclusive.