Exhibition: 17 – 26 October, Tue – Thur 11am – 4pm 
Preview & SAW Reflects evening: Friday 13 October, 5-7pm

Asking For It is a series of photographs that aims to highlight and change historical and current tendencies toward victim blaming, especially in cases of sexual and gender based violence. 

Jayne Jackson, MA, BA (Hons) is a Commercial Photographer and PhD student at Arts University Bournemouth. She created the multi award-winning photographic art series named ‘Asking for it’ over a 3-year period.  Based on multiple case studies, the images highlight victim blaming in cases of sexual violence through the clever use of historical styling and ‘mugshot’ format.

Using make-up artists, actors and historical photographic techniques, Jayne created a series of 23 ‘mugshots’ each representing a different decade and each depicting a reason to victim blame for example ‘Flirted’, ‘Wore Red’, or ‘Swiped Right’.  The fascinating body of work is the result of twelve months of specialist research.  ‘Asking for it’ includes intriguing images, taken using historic wet plate collodion methods, which were inspired by research at The Dorset History Centre. 

Preview and SAW Reflects evening: Friday 13 October, 5-7pm 
The opening night of the exhibition will be an opportunity to get people thinking about how society views victims of sexual violence. We will collectively discuss and consider how it relates to ourselves, our world and our beliefs. We will also share a meal of soup and bread together. This topic can be triggering so there will be pastoral support on hand.