Author: georginie

When I began my work, I had an idea: Gender Inequality in Landscape Photography. I chose this topic as my earliest memories of photography were going out with my family photographing the surrounding landscape. I loved it, but it was only recently I found that there is a massive gender inequality, but I couldn’t find the reason why. As a woman, I don’t see a reason why I couldn’t do the same as a man. It felt like women were being excluded. This thought of exclusion reminded me of my previous studies in religion, where male dominance is rife. I then thought how could I combine the two to create a body of work which worked together. I remembered studying pilgrimages a while ago, and found a local ancient pilgrimage which was solely created by and made for men. I had the idea of using this pilgrimage as a backdrop to explore gender inequality and exclusion in religion and in photography. I have done this by following the pilgrimage and experiencing it as a woman. I have photographed my journey and brought this together in a collage, symbolising the strong force of religion excluded women. As my work covers psychogeography, I decided to include a map to give context to the images. On these mapping images, I have included images of women in my family. This is me bringing in my version of strong women, they are on the journey with me, but do not feature in the main images, as they would have been excluded. The final element to my images are the text. I have used verses from the bible to connect my images. I feel these element work well side by side and have created a cohesive series of images.  

Techniques

My images are simple yet complex. There is a chaotic feel to them and an almost surreal cast to them. My images have a blue tinge to them, which ‘pops’. I wanted contrast in my images, I wanted them to stand out and the blue helped do this. It gives them a chaotic and surreal feel. This blue tinge looks give the impress of a time gone by. It is reminiscent of a by-gone age. I live in Wales and this pilgrimage took part in Wales and there is a famous word here which sums this up perfectly for me. Hiraeth. Hiraeth refers to a nostalgic feel, a feeling of loss and longing. I feel this relates well to my work.

I felt a collage would work best for my work, as it can bring different images together to create a new more meaningful one. Collages have been frequently associated with a craft done by women, so it is fitting with my narrative. I wanted to bring feminine aspects to a male dominated area. I want to highlight the inequality between men and women. I feel my work brings to note how patriarchy is accepted and how women have been excluded for a very long time. The women in my work are on the outskirts. They do not feature in the main images, as for this pilgrimage they were excluded. This also highlights the overarching male dominated religion and society. 

I deliberately choose the font for my text so it would be like the text in the Bible. It is clear and void of it’s own agenda, but it is impactful. I choose verses from the Bible as I wanted it to relate to my topic, of religion, pilgrimage and women. These verses highlight the stark inequality in religion, they are quite eye-opening. 

I felt my images needed a feminine aspect, so I decided to introduce this as a secondary part to my work. I used images from my own family archive as this was personal to me. I positioned these women on the mapping image. I did this as they are not part of the main image, they are excluded as such. There is a comparison that they feature on the journey but not at the forefront, similar to in religion and life. 

I felt the mapping images helped contextualise my images. They give a brief introduction to the location and solidify the work as a journey and a pilgrimage. 

Presentation

I have discussed presentation with my tutor. My first thoughts were to publish my images in a book. I could present my work like a record of my pilgrimage, like a journal. I feel this would suit the images as it would hold the theme of a journey. 

Then I thought about a physical exhibition. This would be very different from a physical presentation like in a book. My images would be set out like in a gallery, but the location is up for debate. I think presenting it in a location near the journey would be meaningful. Even better would be presenting it in one of the churches/buildings, however due to my topic exploring the exclusion of women in religion, I doubt whether the churches would allow this. 

I debated about having an online exhibition. Again, this would be suitable, but I feel it may be a bit impersonal for my work. 

But overall I was drawn to publishing my work as a newsletter. This would hopefully resemble a newsletter you would get in a church, in keeping with the theme of religion. I tried different formats and have moved the images around to see which looked better. I printed the pages as an A5 because I wanted it to resemble a newsletter which are normally small and easy to distribute. A5 is small enough to distribute, and still easily legible, but it is not too big to be unhandable. I printed the images on matt paper, but not a heavy grade paper, as I wanted the feel of a homemade newsletter from a church. 

Research

The artists which have influenced me have varied along my journey. Each has contributed something to my work, but have done so at different stages. As my work has changed and developed over time, so has my research. 

I found Catherine Opie’s work As long as they are wild, helpful. One of my ideas was to represent my images differently to represent the discontent. I would do this by photographing out-of-focus, overexposed, underexposed and from different levels. Then I found Catherine Opie’s work. Opie has taken out-of-focus images of Yosemite, to represent her argument. I found her work similar to what I was aiming for, so to be able to see an artist accomplishing this was very influential. 

I also looked at artists who documented pilgrimages and churchyards. I found these useful as they were the same terrain I am covering. This included artists such as Muhammad Sadiq Bey, Tim Hall, Nina Berman, Jess Kohl and Kaupo Kikkas. The work by these Artists have given me a chance to see how others have approached this topic. Hamish Fulton is an artist who photographs when he is walking, his work helped me as it showed a different approach to a journey. 

One artist which I found later in my work was Mary Beth Edelson, who combined religion and gender inequality in art. Edelson used the last supper image and imposed images of female artist on top. Her images draws a comparison from the patriarchy in religion and in the art world. It was very helpful and influential to see another artist address a very similar topic. 

My work has taken the form of a collage. Before creating this, I looked into artists who used this technique. These include Margaret Harrison, Linder Sterling, Peter Kennard, Barbara Kruger and even Mary Beth Edelson would be valuable here too. I found these artists had covered a large range of topics using a collage technique, and they all had created vastly different results. The techniques varied slightly, some using tradition cut and paste and others using a digital approach. By seeing these different methods, I could experiment and see which would suit my work the best. 

Issues

I have had a few issues and this course has definitely been a learning curve. At the beginning I now feel that I didn’t push myself enough, I took the safe route. But as time went on I felt I have overcome my caution and have experimented and pushed myself. My printer did cause my some problems for a while. It just could not print the images correctly, there were lines, uneven colours etc. I have remedied this now and it is printing the images correctly. 

Positives

I have found my research has been extensive and has really helped me along the way. Every step of the way I have been able to refer to my research and do more research. I feel my research is extensive and I believe I have used it well. My experimentation has been extensive and varied. I wanted to try different things to see how it worked and whether it would suit my work. I have found these to be real positives. I have also found my organisation skill very useful. This has allowed me to keep on top of everything, without getting overwhelmed.  

Outcome

I have taken on board the feedback I have received and have re-worked and improved my work along the way. I am happy with how it has turned out.