BBC Scotland, BREXshit & Full Moon in Representation

Hello lovely people,

Here is some parts of a news letter I sent out earlier this week and I just realised that in the doom and gloom of BREXIT, shadow bans and general struggles I totally forgot to mention that 8 little blackbirds flew down to London to be exhibited by The Royal Photographic Societies Hundred Heroines. Well, they obliviously didn’t fly (train) down but you know what I mean?

Representation on the Line: (Un)framing our Identities A collaborative exhibition from the RPS Hundred Heroines initiative in which female photographers explore the theme of identity.

Isn’t that just amazing? More info further down.

The last two week has been pretty, interesting.

2019 is definitely a year of change and uprooting. The EU elections during the weekend really emphasised this and Theresa May finally left her position (yes, we all were waiting for that!). Saying that I am now hoping that she does not get replaced by that cxxt  Boris Johnson.

Talking about female body parts... finally, something shifted. I think most of you know that I have had several 30 days bans from Facebook and both my Instagram accounts have been shadow banned since I first started. It is not because of vaginas and "female nipples", it is purely due to stretch marks, excessive body fat, realness and aging women.  Representation is fundamental and if you are not represented, you kind of does not exist. We all know that our “visual diet” is slowly starving us, lacking both vitamines and minerals we get left hungry for authentic images.

BBC Scotland listened to my story and the video has been viewed 125 K  on Facebook (isn't it ironic?)  and my shadow ban lifted for a week. My @whenTheBlackbirdSings_ account is still hidden, I don’t even come up in the search, my “good fight” will continue.

The last full moon was all about burning down the house (symbolically) and I think it has begun are you ready for the new moon in June?


Please find me on IG for more photography and have a really nice week. 

Love
Jannica Honey 

Please visit RPS Hundred Heroines  web page for more info on the exhibition

19 Mallord St, London SW3 6AP. 

Opening times (22nd May – 26th June)

Wednesday:  14.00 – 19.00
Friday: 12.00 – 18.00
Saturday: 11.00 – 18.00

@RPS100Heroines
#Unframingidentities

Below is my Instagram feed, in fact , it is my Jannica Honey account rather than When The Blackbird Sings, I can’t even find it. TBC, I promse.

Female Bodies, BBC and Our Visual Diet.

Hello everyone, time to check-in again.

Have you noticed it? The light is returning. Soon we will be reaching the summer solstice (or estival solstice), also known as midsummer which occurs when one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun.

Perhaps not soon, but we will be there, in a couple of months time.

What are you shining your light on?

You are (I am guessing) aware of where my beam is aiming. As I always say, I would be pretty happy just wandering the woods, creating beautiful photographs in the twilight, perhaps in a studio full of musicians/politicians/creatives, but there is something that is forever pulling at me.

What happened with the authentic body?

Who is represented and who is completely “gone”.

If this is our visual diet, are we not lacking both vitamins and minerals? Is there a supplement we can take?

When nature, life, and nutrition are completely sucked out of us. What will then be left? Pixels and empty spaces?

It's not really about the female nipple.

It's about authentic bodies, all our bodies. Old bodies, fat bodies, wrinkly bodies, tired bodies, bleeding bodies and stretched bodies. Bodies who are there for the reason we were given one; to live in.

Bodies free from commercial hysteria or male gaze.. just natural, stinking and hairy bodies.

My When The Blackbird Sings account on Instagram is completely penalised and has a shadownban, this means that ## are not working and it does not even appear in the search engine.

https://www.instagram.com/whentheblackbirdsings_/

I am lucky BBC had the time for me and popped around here last week for a chat. Update soon…

And until next time… Please pay attention to where light shine, who is represented and what is not?

At the end of the day, it is only you who can make this place a better space, for all of us.

For the International Women’s Day at The Arienas Collective here in Edinburgh I spoke to That’s Scotland TV about some of these issues (video below)

Love (always

Jannica Honey xx

When The Blackbird Sings (press-release)

When the Blackbird Sings (2016-2017) focuses on the female body and its links with nature.

The compelling works depict naked women of all ages as well as poetic shots of flowers in water. The subjects are family, friends and acquaintances of the artist, always posing outdoors and at twilight. Honey shot the fascinating images over the course of a whole year, exclusively on every full and new moon, starting at the October 2016 Supermoon. When the Blackbird Sings is named after the bird which signals twilight with a song; while shooting the series Honey was stricken by the song’s memento mori-undertones.

The resulting photographs unveil lyrical still lifes alongside delicate moments of tenderness and unashamed femininity, and celebrate the beauty of the female form at any age. While some of the sitters are smiling directly at the camera, others are looking away from it, almost blending into the surrounding setting of moss and trees. The colourful flowers, including daisies and passion flowers, are captured resting on the surface of Edinburgh’s Water of Leith. Honey shot across Scotland and Sweden to illustrate her attachment to both her adoptive and home countries.

Shooting at twilight allowed Honey to challenge the limitations of her chosen medium, in part for the time constraint (twilight only lasts 15-20 minutes), but also for the particular blue hue the light takes on during that time. While most photographers consider it unflattering for theirs subject matter and shy away from it, Honey explores its potential to offer a glimpse of an ephemeral moment in the 24 hour-cycle. When the Blackbird Sings also delves into the significance and symbolism of dusk and explores the ethereal quality of twilight; an in-between moment which doesn’t belong to either day or night, and which Honey sees as an emotional, reflective pause in her day.

When the Blackbird Sings started when Honey felt compelled to reaffirm her own ‘feminine voice’ in the face of personal challenges and male-dominated political events - in particular the recent death of her grandmother and the US elections. By basing her shooting schedule on moon cycles - an intrinsic feminine rhythm - Honey channeled the earth’s natural rhythms into her work, and explored her own reconnection to womanhood and femininity.

Honey’s work is often concerned with the female body and the place of women in society. In 2011 she spent two months photographing Edinburgh strippers, providing a candid and sensitive insight into a world rarely captured. Honey is a successful commercial photographer whose previous work focuses on fashion, journalism and music photography. Her award-winning images has been published in The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Dazed & Confused, Aesthetica Magazine. In 2013 she spent time in the native Mohawk reservation in Canada, working on a photography project related to identity and belonging.

Jannica Honey was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1974. She moved to Edinburgh to study photography and digital imaging at Telford College, after completing a BA in Humanities (anthropology and criminology) at Stockholm University in 1998. She won the prestigious Fuji Award for her fashion photography in 2003. She lives and works in Edinburgh.