Winning entry of the 2018 Lady Margaret Beaufort Portrait Prize, Christ’s College, Cambridge.
The series of five photographs each portray a current female student at Christ’s. Echoing both classical and modern themes in portraiture, the women are depicted in their own outfits, holding a book they consider valuable to their knowledge and growth.
Unlike Lady Beaufort’s traditional posture, highlighted by her headdress and the Bible, contemporary women at Christ’s are represented as confident and unique individuals, with various backgrounds and personalities.
They each wear a coloured Indian shawl, that subverts Lady Margaret’s religious headdress to hint towards the relationship of patronage and the history of the Collegiate university within the context of the British Empire.
The series thus aims to reflect on the evolution both of women’s status at Christ’s (and beyond) and of Cambridge University itself, as it adapts to the internationalisation of academia and knowledge production.
