PHOTOGRAPHS | CURATING WITH ECOLOGIES OF GIRLHOOD
In this visual essay we revisit a summer immersion, Ecologies of Girlhood. An array of women curators, storytellers, musicians, performers, artists, ecologists, scientists and scholars shared their practices in an intergenerational and interdisciplinary format with a group of girls between the ages of 7 and 10. The immersion unfolded through a series of walking provocations sparked by local elements — indigenous plants, stories, poetry, ballads, sheroes, rivers, streetscapes and art. Exploring playful modes of curating, the girls gathered some of these moments and objects together, as last day overflowed into an exhibition with pop-up lectures, performances, and opportunities for making, learning and teaching. For us, curating with embraces our alongsideness with, rather than our acquisition of, what is ecologically threaded through girlhood, and offers a way of creatively placing and performing ourselves within the contributions of women in Appalachia, with the land and with one another.
'Curating with Ecologies of Girlhood' | Hofsess, Ulmer, Carlisle, & Caldwell (2019)
Unpublished image from summer immersion.