MANHOOD. Medium. Limited edition of 10. Photograph

Laura Dodsworth is a photographer, author and filmmaker with an interest in moving, human stories, the body and our most hidden taboos. Born in 1973 in England she moved to Paris in her late twenties and decided to re-train as a journalist. While there, she took a black and white composition course purely for pleasure, and it changed everything. She realised she wanted to create and communicate through the lens. Now her work has come full circle and her work is strongly narrative and often includes interview and storytelling aspects. Aside from assisting, Laura is self taught which has given her the freedom to find her influences outside of the academic canon. Over the last five years, she has photographed & interviewed 300 women and men about their breasts, penises and vulvas, for her projects 'Bare Reality', 'Manhood' and 'Womanhood'. This series exemplifies her fascination for the taboo. On one hand she offers simple categorisations of the male and female form and, on the other, visual signposts through the politics of power, shame, identity, sexuality and inequality that inform our sexed experience of the world as women and men. Laura and her project 'Womanhood' were the subject of a Channel 4 film '100 Vaginas', described by the Financial Times as a “cultural talking point”. Forthcoming work also uses embodied stories to explore socio-political themes. Her work has been critically acclaimed and featured around the world in major newspapers and magazines, on TV, radio and online, and she was invited to give a TEDx talk.