Country Lesbians
the story of the WomanShare collective
30.10–29.11.24

A show with WomanShare co-founders Carol, Billie, Nelly, Dian and Sue, curated by Louise Toth & Salomé Burstein

In the summer of 1973, Billie, Carol and Dian set out on a road trip to escape the patriarchal, masculine culture of the big city. Driven by a desire of going back to the land and the belief that women must find new ways of living together, they leave Montreal and head West, driving across the United States all the way to Southern Oregon. In 1974, they buy a piece of land and create WomanShare, a separatist lesbian community where they live, build, farm, write autonomously. They also take pictures, document their environment, pose for each other during “ovulars” – yearly photography workshops organized every summer, joined by women coming from the city or other lesbians lands. Borrowing its title from a 1976 book co-written by the members of WomanShare, “Country Lesbians: an archive of the Womanshare collective” pays tribute to this major yet little known piece of herstory, while highlighting uses of photography as a feminist and collective practice.