Around thirteen years ago the photographer and scholar Leah DeVun, and her transgender partner, lived in Texas. She tells me that there was anti-LGBT sentiment in the air, just like it is now. A friend suggested womyn’s land, a historic and revolutionary community built by Lesbians during the 1970s and 1980s.
DeVun’s suggestion led her on a journey that spanned over a decade, bringing her to places where creative movements have thrived and are still flourishing. One of these womyn’s lands, Rootworks, in Oregon (also called “wimmin’s lands”) played an important role in the development of photography. It hosted workshops that encouraged participants try new techniques and to think beyond the boundaries of the male gaze.
Lesbian Land is DeVun’s on-going series. It combines documentary photos from today’s womyns’ lands with staged performances based on images taken in the 1970s or 1980s. The artist has shown original lesbian zines during past exhibitions.
DeVun, soon after learning about the womyn’s lands in 2010, ordered a photocopied map of these lands. The original was written by Shewolf. She remembers exactly when it arrived.
She tells me, “It had a lot of beautiful hand-drawn drawings, names like Wiseheart or Night Sky, as well as a list of phone numbers and addresses.” “I began writing and calling people and a world of queer community and space opened up to my.”
We wanted to know more about the women who created a new world decades ago, and what lessons we could learn from them.