Collective dreams: collaboration and identity in cross-cultural fashion photography practice

Regan, Layla Leonie Jade (2023) Collective dreams: collaboration and identity in cross-cultural fashion photography practice. Masters by Research thesis (MPhil), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis began as a practitioner’s perspective on the subject of Chinese fashion photography, a relatively new but rapidly progressing phenomenon. However, as a British fashion image maker, it focuses on the links between my shifting identity and working methodology as a result of cross-cultural collaboration in fashion photographic practice in China. The research investigated the process of fashion photography and its teamwork through the evolution of my practice as a result of working in three Chinese cities between 2016 and 2020. Shifts in the collaborative aspects of my practice toward greater interchange of team roles were highlighted during my work in Ningbo, Wuhan and Hong Kong. This prompted me to re-examine these changes through a detailed practice review undertaken using techniques of autoethnography. The experience of building a new identity in a foreign environment led me intuitively to ways of working that aided in the construction of place and identity. These included wandering excursions to collect images of textures, as well as self-portraiture deliberately portrayed as ‘other’ in local environments. Such enabled a form of cultural hybridity to develop that was brought to teaching and collaborative work. Evidence on changing practice was also generated through interviews with twenty-one former students or collaborators in China, focusing on key shoots in which the fluidity of collaborative roles was exhibited. The participants from Ningbo and Wuhan were first met as students, but relationships later continued as professional colleagues. It is acknowledged that the power relationship of lecturer-student is asymmetrical, with students wishing (overall) to please, which will have influenced their interaction on photoshoots. Nonetheless, these shoots were designed in keeping with a professional environment, with little difference in practical terms apart from not having a commercial directive. The works considered in the thesis thus include self-initiated projects with student collaborators (Ningbo, Wuhan), professional collaborative projects (Hong Kong) and an online project open to collaborators. The interviews were conducted online using an interpreter. Informalities introduced to suit the needs of translation led to calling these conversations. The conversations not only provided crucial alternative perspectives on matters of collaboration, but contributed to emergent themes of translation, the fashion shoot as heterotopic space, and aspects of control (and relinquishing control). These were interpreted using Homi Bhabha's idea of cultural hybridity as an overarching and unifying concept, The ideas of Foucault (heterotopias), Benjamin (the dialectical image), and Facer and Pahl (productive divergence) were important to the theoretical understanding. The evidence presented in the thesis extends Lochmann’s historical correlation between Dada and Dao into the contemporary art and fashion arena. This research also claims the fashion shoot space as a heterotopia in which the studio and the atmospheric realms co-exist, alongside the layering of the past onto the present (often arising from nostalgia in an environment of rapid change). The research contributes to knowledge by extending the area of application of the relationship between Dao and Dada, and by extending the concept of heterotopia to include the fashion photo shoot. It provides a new perspective on translation that includes the productive nature of ‘mistranslation’. Finally, it connects the ‘border crossing’ of translation, the movement between past and present/ real and fantastical of the heterotopic space, and the process of relinquishing control in creative collaboration as actions that support cultural hybridity. New creative work revisiting the archive of work created in China accompanies the written thesis.