“Where I Fit in this Odd Geometry of Time”: The Experienced Self-Narrative from Image and Text in the Artwork of Francesca Woodman

Abstract

In Francesca Woodman’s short eight-year career, she developed more than 500 photographs (Chadwick). She also produced performance videos and artist’s books. She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and travelled abroad to Rome. At twenty-two years old, in 1981, she jumped from a building on New York’s Lower East Side and ended her life. Although her career was short, the artwork she leaves behind haunts her viewers. The long exposure photographs portray blurry fragments of the body, juxtaposed with unlikely exteriors and interiors; it is often unclear what exactly the viewer is meant to see. Just as the content of these photographs is unclear, the context of these photographs is unclear. As Isabella Pecidini, suggests: one “of the fascinating aspects of Francesca Woodman’s imagery is its indeterminacy, its mystery. Any viewer of a picture brings herself or himself to it, but Woodman’s imagery seems particularly adept at inviting multiple readings” (8). Because of the plethora of options, scholars struggle to choose a specific lens through which to read Woodman.