Paper short abstract:

This photo essay is keen to glimpse a language-less place. At a boxing hall in Archway, North London a group of boxers meet and train. This space, though unquestionably “urban” appears to shut the urban out, appears to shut language out. This space speaks in silence, through body and through strength.

Paper long abstract:

This photo essay is keen to glimpse a language-less place. I photographed women boxers training in a hall in Archway and in doing so I found a unique space. This space, though unquestionably "urban", appears to shut the urban out, appears to shut language out. Why might a woman seek to shut out (or retreat from) neoliberal urban transformation like this? It is often to voids and negative spaces that I look to understand populated and positive (urban) spaces. Where can solace (from the urban, from its all encompassing nature) be found? On reading Kathy Acker's wonderful essay "Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body" I came across the concept of "rejecting" or shutting out language.

'After each workout, I forgot to write. Repeatedly. I ... some part of me ... the part of the 'I' who bodybuilds ... was rejecting language, any verbal description of the processes of bodybuilding.' - Kathy Acker, 1992

To attempt a language-less and body-full state, a 'geography of no language' as Acker puts it, strikes me. The photographs I present here of boxers attempt to speak volumes using no language(s). Quite different from "body language" these portraits attempt to capture the "Language of the Body". Sheltered momentarily from the urban, the boxers/ bodies here are poised and full of strength. In this language-less space the boxers shed identity as dictated by language - they may be women of colour but within this space, language--which makes and encourages distinctions--appears banished. Instead through body and through strength it is silence that speaks.