Leica Women Foto Project Winners!

By Suzanne Révy

The Leica Women Foto Project was launched last year to promote “the expansion and diversity of inclusion in photography.” In their first year, they have chosen three women for a grant and the loan of a camera to further projects that address topical issues around identity and culture. The three photographers, Yana Paskova, Debi Cornwall and Eva Woolridge were selected by five women in the industry: Leica Galleries International’s Karin Kaufman, photographer and Guggenheim fellow Maggie Steber, curator and book designer Elizabeth Avedon, producer at United Photo Industries Laura Roumanos and photographer, writer and educator Deborah Willis. The selected portfolios are currently on view in the Leica Gallery Boston through April 26th, 2020. 

Yana Paskova “Woman in Blue” 2019, from the series “Where Women Rule: The Widows of Varanasi” courtesy of the artist, Getty/Lumix and the Leica Gallery Boston.

Yana Paskova “Meena Devi, 78 pets a cow outside the Oak Kuti Ashram in Varanasi” on view at Leica Gallery Boston. (Installation photography by Suzanne Révy)

Yana Paskova brings the plight of widows living together in India to our attention in her series, “The Widows of Varanasi,” part of a larger project called “Where Women Rule.” Paskova asks, “what happens when cultural norms of gender are amended or removed?” By looking at places where women gather and live together, Paskova hopes to broaden ideas around femininity and masculinity to reveal how the fluid nature of human bonds can create different models for communal or family living that is free from rigid gender roles. Her color pictures depict the daily lives of several widows living in an ashram in the holy city of Varanasi. Considered unworthy and unlucky, many of the widows were neglected or abused by in-laws after the death of their husbands, so they fled here to build their lives around female kinship. Paskova offers an empathetic eye and visibility to women whose culture prefers them to remain unseen. 

Debi Cornwall “Dara Lam Village” 2017 from the series “Necessary Fictions” courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston

Prints from the series “Necessary Fictions” by Debi Cornwall on view at Leica Gallery Boston. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)

“Necessary Fictions” is an arresting follow up to Cornwall’s “Welcome to Camp America.” She continues to look at the military industrial complex in this post 9/11 world of perpetual war and conflict. The fictional town takes on the eerie quality of an abandoned movie set in her photographs, alongside portraits of the players whose Hollywood make-up enhances their roles as enemy to allow for the U.S. military to train soldiers before their deployments. Ironically, the people who play the roles of the opposition are often refugees from the Afghan or Iraq war; who is our enemy, after all? These fictions are created on bases in the U.S., and Cornwall asks, “what are the games we play to manage unsettling realities in times of vigilance and political division?” And most importantly, Cornwall seems to be asking, by making a game of it, will we ever put an end to war?

Eva Woolridge “The Weight of Trauma” from the series “The Size of a Grapefruit” courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

The classical figure studies of Eva Woolridge in “The Size of a Grapefruit” also raise questions around female identity, health and empowerment. Each nude figure is presented on a simple background, her skin darkened to a deep ebony, and the figure adorned with a bright red grapefruit. Her studies bring Irving Penn to mind, but her intention runs deeper than an interest in pure form. Woolridge underwent a traumatic medical event which resulted in the loss of an ovary after her doctors discovered a cyst the size of a grapefruit. Each picture represents the emotional rollercoaster she rode from the dismissive treatment she, as a woman of color, received by medical personnel through her surgery to her two month recovery. Viewers will intuit the tension between the beauty of these extraordinary pictures and the blinding pain suffered by the photographer.

(Featured Image) Eva Woolridge “Blinding Pain” from the series “The Size of a Grapefruit” courtesy of the artist and Leica Gallery Boston.

The divergent approaches of these three photographers is striking. Paskova’s pictures are objective documentary images, while Cornwall opts for a more conceptual approach to documentary practice and Woolridge’s staged formal studies are purely conceptual. Despite these differences, each project sheds light on both subtle and overt forms of violence perpetrated against women and people of color. It is heartening that Leica has recognized the value of diverse women’s voices in photography and storytelling to bring these important, but often overlooked stories to light.

For more information go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com

Leica Women Foto Project featuring Eva Woolridge on view at the Leica Gallery, Boston. (Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy)