Cut Out: Study Session

Female artists have long employed collage to reflect the ways in which identity is often constructed from conflicting, contrasting, and contradictory parts. In this study session, Fiona Rogers (V&A Parasol Curator of Women in Photography) will present a range of objects from the V&A collection which embody use of 'femmage'—a radical reclaiming of craft traditionally associated with women—as a resilient method within feminist and political art.

From nineteenth-century cut and paste album-makers, to Modernist, Surrealist, and Dadaist innovators; radical, second-wave feminists and pioneering contemporary artists, this material offers an expanded definition of collage to encompass photomontage, assemblage, and the photogram.

'Cut Out: A Feminist History of Photo Collage, Montage and Assemblage' is a new V&A and Thames & Hudson publication which explores the previously untold relationship between photography, feminist art, and collage through the V&A’s extensive collection of photography, spanning the nineteenth century to the present day.

Supported by the V&A Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project