What She Said takes its title from a 1985 Smiths song, it originates in portraits Deanna Templeton made on the streets of the US, Europe, Australia and Russia, in which she captured women in their adolescence: punks and outcasts whose ripped jeans and tights, tattoos, and hairstyles stand as testament to this transitional moment in their lives as they navigate the intensity of teenage life. Templeton grew up in an ostensibly different environment in 1980s youth, but she recognised in them something of the universality of female adolescence, as they struggled with similar disappointments and challenges she encountered as a young woman. The book combines these modern portraits with gig flyers and Templeton’s own teenage journal entries from the mid to late 80s, in which the familiar experience of growing up is laid bare in all its antagonism, humour and pathos.
“How come someone hasn’t noticed
That I’m dead and decided to bury me?
God knows, I’m ready!”
But then, all the rejection she’s had
To pretend to be happy
Could only be idiocy
Deanna Templeton : What She Said
Published by MACK
Embossed linen hardback with tip-in
19.5 x 24.5cm, 168 pages
ISBN 978-1-913620-05-9
€45 £40 $50
The signed edition includes an extra image plate signed by the artist and glued into the inside back cover.
