Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move
This article focuses on the practice of the late photographer Tessa Boffin. I situate her work in the context of British art and politics as they were at the time of "queer" being reclaimed from a term of abuse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and explore how she used photography...
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| Language: | English |
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Yale University
2025-07-01
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| Series: | British Art Studies |
| Online Access: | https://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/27/tessa-boffins-the-knights-move/ |
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| author | Flora Dunster |
| author_facet | Flora Dunster |
| author_sort | Flora Dunster |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This article focuses on the practice of the late photographer Tessa Boffin. I situate her work in the context of British art and politics as they were at the time of "queer" being reclaimed from a term of abuse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and explore how she used photography to visualise what "queer" could mean from a lesbian perspective. The article centres on an analysis of Boffin's series *The Knight's Move* (1990), in which she rewrites the history of her queer present to include a lesbian past. While these photographs can be viewed as a precedent for an intersectional and exploratory understanding of queerness, I suggest that "the knight's move" can also work beyond the series itself. I locate it as a strategy for bringing "queer" and "lesbian" together in our present, re-figuring both positions in relation to each other and in resistance to the gatekeeping around the meaning of each word. I argue for the knight's move as a device that allows us to situate photographs not as historical remnants but as a vital site of community formation, thereby offering a way of working *with* Boffin's oeuvre rather than *on* it. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a42aacd792ef411f9d9843d30693e75c |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2058-5462 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | Yale University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | British Art Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-a42aacd792ef411f9d9843d30693e75c2025-08-20T03:14:05ZengYale UniversityBritish Art Studies2058-54622025-07-012710.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-27/fdunsterRewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's MoveFlora Dunster0https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9958-6362Central Saint Martins This article focuses on the practice of the late photographer Tessa Boffin. I situate her work in the context of British art and politics as they were at the time of "queer" being reclaimed from a term of abuse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and explore how she used photography to visualise what "queer" could mean from a lesbian perspective. The article centres on an analysis of Boffin's series *The Knight's Move* (1990), in which she rewrites the history of her queer present to include a lesbian past. While these photographs can be viewed as a precedent for an intersectional and exploratory understanding of queerness, I suggest that "the knight's move" can also work beyond the series itself. I locate it as a strategy for bringing "queer" and "lesbian" together in our present, re-figuring both positions in relation to each other and in resistance to the gatekeeping around the meaning of each word. I argue for the knight's move as a device that allows us to situate photographs not as historical remnants but as a vital site of community formation, thereby offering a way of working *with* Boffin's oeuvre rather than *on* it. https://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/27/tessa-boffins-the-knights-move/ |
| spellingShingle | Flora Dunster Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move British Art Studies |
| title | Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move |
| title_full | Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move |
| title_fullStr | Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move |
| title_short | Rewriting the Future: Tessa Boffin's The Knight's Move |
| title_sort | rewriting the future tessa boffin s the knight s move |
| url | https://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/27/tessa-boffins-the-knights-move/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT floradunster rewritingthefuturetessaboffinstheknightsmove |