Odette England

Self / Scape | This series is about land, gender, and the adaptation of vernacular photographs. I grew up in a male dominated farming environment. Labelled a “tomboy” for being gender rebellious – a word I now understand is problematic and carries baggage about gender behavior, sexuality, and what it means to be a girl – my sense of self was shaped by how I was taught to cooperate with the land. Be practical, logical, down-to-earth. Historically, men were the predominant explorers of land, on foot and visually. In this series, I ask: can landscapes, majestic or ordinary, be gendered? To what extent can I re-shape representations of land as opposed to them shaping me? I hand-cut and collage vernacular photographs of land taken by men to present these questions. I rework and thus begin to reclaim the male gaze on the land. I turn landscapes into semi-figurative studies. www.odetteengland.com