LESBIAN LAND (2010-current)
This is a multi-disciplinary project of photographs, performances, and conversations centered on "womyn's lands" (lesbian intentional communities, also known as "wimmin's lands"). Images from the series have been published in Capricious, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, No More Potlucks, and Art Papers and exhibited in the United States and Europe.
This series draws its title from Lesbian Land, a book by lesbians who dropped out of society in the 1970s and 1980s to form revolutionary communities and bring about liberation. Womyn's lands such as Rootworks, Womanshare, and others were sites of enormous creativity. Land dykes published women-authored books and magazines, supported musical networks, and made essential contributions to the history of photography. This history is for the most part unknown.
This project documents lesbian land, and it hopes to inspire conversations about non-traditional living spaces (through intentional communities, collectives, land trusts, and other methods of pooling resources to buy land or buildings) that could exist, at least ideally, outside of a market economy. At a time when questions about gentrification, real estate development, and sustainable communities are weighing heavily on us, this set of images and conversations asks us to look at the past to imagine a different future.
The project combines documentary photography and staged re-performances of images from 1970s-80s lesbian zines with a rural bent, such as Country Women, Lesbian Connection, Sinister Wisdom, Blatant Image, Womanspirit, and other publications. Most of the photographs were taken on womyn's lands that are still in existence. You can watch me talk about this project at the Brooklyn Museum and Leslie-Lohman Museum.
