Comic capers make a comeback

Crazed corsetry: Liz Hoggard kidnaps production assistants Rosa and Beth as part of her fiendish plan to turn them into mannequins
10 April 2012

I'm upstairs at Selfridges in the VIP Personal Shopping area. With its candy-pink sofas and flattering mirrors, this is where celebrities try on Chloe frocks and Vivienne Westwood bustiers over a glass of champagne.

But today is a little different. I'm shooting a photo-story with female art duo, The Girls. In a collaboration between The Photographers' Gallery and Selfridges, they have been invited to create artworks inspired by the history of the store for the Ultralounge.

Throughout April they've been busy shooting in and around the store, featuring its staff and customers and reviving the fun of the photo-story genre. In today's episode, Together Forever, I'm playing a mad gipsy who kidnaps a pair of beautiful young women, laces them into corsets and turns them into mannequins.

The Girls (Andrea and Zoe) pile on the scarves and jewellery and insist I slap on black eyeshadow. "You need to have very exaggerated features," explains Andrea. "There's nothing subtle about a photo-story," laughs Zoe. "You've got to make big dramatic gestures, almost like a cartoon."

Photo-stories — once the lifeblood of comics like Jackie, Photo Love and My Guy magazine — are back. In the Seventies and Eighties, the likes of Hugh Grant and George Michael earned pocket money starring in them. But this time it's creative Londoners who are organising lo-fi shoots of their own.

Celia Willis, 30, is the founder of We Are Photo Girls, a London-based company specialising in fashion photography projects for teenage girls. Two of them, Stories in Fashion and Fashion Identity, are based on the idea of story-telling which, according to Willis, has become incredibly popular.

"Everything we teach promotes the idea of making stories with narrative, characters and theatrical elements. Storytelling is especially prevalent among teenage girls because it's all part of the diary-writing craze. You only need to look at their photos to see they've created 100 stories, full of emotions. I think women are far better at talking and sharing stories."

This summer, Willis expects hundreds of teens to sign up for holiday courses. Likewise, Brett Jefferson Scott, CEO of Shoot Experience, which organises photographic treasure hunt days in London, is seeing more people in their twenties join his events. Each is different, drawing its inspiration from fairytales or books. But Shoot's next event in The British Museum will be based around film scripts — participants will be given scripts, props and a three-hour time limit in which to capture their ideas, after which all the photo-stories will be compiled to make a larger one.

Jefferson Scott explains this sudden surge: "We're now getting 150 people each time. It's because London's a great place for making stories. Its wonderful heritage and architecture are ideal and also makes for some very individual responses from each person."

The Girls specialise in creating private staged tableaux and recording them as self-portrait photography or video. Think Angela Carter crossed with Cindy Sherman. But they love the raw immediacy of the photo-shoot. "They're such incredibly surreal stories. They let you suspend disbelief, the most crazy things can happen."

The entire look and feel of the project represents a defiant stand against contemporary digitised methods, encapsulating a punk aesthetic. "Collage is a very British, DIY approach — and very fast," enthuses Zoe. They love using real people. "Much more interesting than professional day-to-day posers. Casting is everything."

And by suggesting the innocence of a bygone era, they've sneaked some taboo topics into the photo-story. Those twins in their coloured wigs have a quasi-incestous relationship, while God knows what my motives are for kidnapping them.

Annie Lennox has already visited The Girls' bunker-like workspace in the Ultralounge (which resembles a female version of Andy Warhol's The Factory). And just as we were shooting a tricky bit of corset lacing — "Pull harder, Liz," commanded Andrea. "They need to look in real pain"— who should burst out of the VIP Changing Room but Joanna Lumley.

"It's contemporary art," I faltered. "Andrea and Zoe are artists in residence at Selfridges reinventing photographic story-telling. And I'm a mad gypsy."

There was a pause. Then Joanna threw back her head and roared. "What fun. I must go home tonight and come up with a story myself."
The Paper Eaters — Long Live the Photo-Story! is at Ultralounge, Selfridges, Oxford Street until Thursday. The Girls will be giving a talk tomorrow , 7pm, at The Photographer's Gallery. Booking: 0845 2621618.

We Are Photo Girls runs free and private workshops throughout July and August. £225/3-day workshop from 11am to 4pm. www.wearephotogirls.com
Shoot Bloomsbury at The British Museum is on May 1 from 10.45am to 6pm. www.shootexperience.com

Additional reporting: Victoria Stewart

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