Photographer Holly Wren’s exhibition LOVE LIVED is on the first and second floor lobbies at Broadgate Tower in the City of London. Giant cubes featuring images of 14 people she interviewed for her project were lit up outside back in February and are now on the move to two further locations. “The cubes have been really popular and look spectacular at night. They are a great way for people to engage with art,” says Holly, whose aim was to have a cross-generational project that challenges preconceptions around love and relationships and celebrates ageing. She is also questioning why older people – the fabric of the city – are no longer anywhere to be seen.

“It was really important that the project wasn’t all hearts and flowers. There are people who have that and there are people who have never found love, and all the degrees in between. There are many different types of love to experience, and these stories demonstrate that breadth”.

All of her subjects except one couple, Rita and Ernie (above) were sourced through Contact the Elderly, the charity supporting the exhibition. They were all photographed at home and have experienced love in many forms – from chaperoned dates to chance meetings, dance halls and war army bases. Themes include first loves, passion, rejection, affection and marriage.

All of the stories are fascinating but some stand out for their subjects’ bravery in challenging social norms at the time. Joan was rejected by her first love and went on to build a business based on love, running the UK’s first escort agency and a computer dating service with a man she met on a blind date. Chitra from Trinidad shunned her arranged marriage when she realised it would mean giving up her career and moved to the UK in 1963 to train as a teacher. Florence from Jamaica responded to a lonely-hearts ad in her local paper, which led to a lifelong romance. Sidney, an ex-serviceman, describes his 62-year marriage to Winifred was one of convenience that had its ups and downs and questions how relevant marriage is to the younger generation now.

“We don’t normally ask older people about their experiences of love so it was good to have a conversation around that. I asked them questions like, “Can you describe love?” and “what was it that you loved about your husband?” Two of the men cried when talking about their wives who had died but interestingly none of the women did, which surprised me as the exhibition mostly featured women. Sometimes the responses were quite simple, which made me wonder if we overthink love or place too much emphasis on looking for some pre-ordained idea”.

Looking at photos of strangers can be a little surreal so hearing their backstories and having some context through video interviews is grounding. The videos on Holly’s website add depth and enable you to get to know the characters a bit more.  Love is universal in whatever form it takes and it’s reassuring to know we’re not alone with our disappointments.

“I’m amazed at the things people said and their honesty. I feel privileged to have done this. Most ordinary people are completely extraordinary when you dig in…”

LOVE LIVED is at the Broadgate Tower first and second-floor lobby spaces, available to view by appointment until 10^th June. www.lovelived.co.uk.

Visit Contact the Elderly to find out more about joining their team of volunteers. 

This week Newsnight has been featuring reports from the documentary series Return to White Horse Village about the upheaval of a rural community in China as the village is turned into a city. Last night’s episode focused on the women and how their lives are changing with urbanisation – the city bringing money and freedom from a life in the fields doing back-breaking work to support their families. One woman had never read a book or travelled outside of the village, another spoke of her frustration at being told by her elders that she has to “put up with it” [do the work] like everyone else.

China’s ‘one-child policy’ (in the cities) which started in the 1970s was eased last year, so after decades of gender bias men currently outnumber women by 33m, which creates an interesting dynamic in terms of work, sex and relationships. Economically independent women in the cities are aspirational and can cherry pick their men so will inevitably want a partner with a broader cultural outlook, and take the opportunity to work, travel and educate themselves as their mothers may not have been able to.

This theme of power dynamics and old versus new is the basis of a new book by Hong Kong-based photographer Jo Farrell. For the past nine years, she has been documenting cultural trends and changes and capturing arts and traditions that are dying out. Her book Living History: Bound Feet Women of China documents 50 women with bound feet from rural areas.

She asked them to share their stories, which are illustrated with black and white photos of their delicate ‘lotus’ feet. The close-up shots are difficult to look at yet this is a practice that continued in secret after it was outlawed by the government in 1912, and many mothers bound their daughters’ feet to improve their ‘marriageability’ into a higher social class. Bound feet limited women’s mobility making them more dependent on their husband and family.

Jo’s aim is to challenge preconceptions about the type of women who experienced foot binding – it wasn’t all upper-class concubines, and to share their stories so that people look beyond their feet.

“There is a general presumption that the bound feet women of China came from privileged backgrounds and wore exquisite silk shoes but I discovered that many of the surviving women came from peasant backgrounds and had lived extraordinary lives working in the fields, despite their bound feet. All the women I have photographed are now between 80 and 100-years-old from rural areas in Shandong and Yunnan Provinces. My work is about capturing traditions and cultures that are dying out, and therefore I chose to use black and white film and print silver gelatin prints – in tribute to these resilient, formidable women, some of whom are no longer with us.”

Resilient and formidable indeed.

As with the women in the documentary, there’s a sense of acceptance, not making a fuss and just getting on with it, which is humbling and so it’s great to see a project like this paying tribute to them. Binding women’s feet was a long-term process done with bandages and so cost nothing – we in the West may call judgement but we also pay vast amounts for cosmetic surgery and ‘vaginal rejuvenation’ to alter the way we look, so really, how is it any different?

Jo has been in London this month speaking about her project at Asia House and to launch the V&A Museum’s new exhibition: Shoes: Pleasure and Pain. She is looking for funding for further projects along similar themes: documenting the facial tattoos of tribal women of China’s Hainan Island and the ethnically exclusive Hakka women in Hong Kong, so if this is something you’d like to support check out the links below.

www.jofarrell.com
www.facebook.com/jofarrellphotography
www.twitter.com/jofarrellphoto

Shoes: Pleasure & Pain is at the V&A Museum until 31st January 2016.

Return to White Horse Village by Carrie Grace.

Photo: Thanks to Sepp Rutz on Unsplash