In celebration of International Women’s Day 2023, we honor many of the women who inspire us daily — photographers, artists, writers, designers, researchers, poets, curators, art directors, editors, visionaries. Here are 24 of the most popular articles and interviews published in LensCulture in the past year. We hope you find some true inspiration from these remarkable women.
Working in collaboration with their protagonists, Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer depict hopeful, powerful “utopian” visions for young women whose lives have been uprooted by forced migration.
Photographs by Cooper & Gorfer. Interview by Liz Sales.
This intimate portrait series is a tribute to love, and to the demanding and courageous task of growing old gracefully, graciously, and aware.
Photographs and text by Marna Clarke.
In this series of double self-portraits, mother and daughter pose with an aim to keeping the viewer in the perspective of an outsider looking in.
Photographs and text by Anna Grevenitis.
Jeanette Spicer’s evocative portraits of friends and family play with light and space to challenge viewers to rethink intimacy, representation and relationships.
Photographs by Jeanette Spicer. Interview by Magali Duzant.
Conjured from the absurdity of life in lockdown, Slovakian photographer Zuzana Pustaiová’s imaginative portraits use wit and humor to tackle the roles we adopt in our everyday lives.
Photographs by Zuzana Pustaiová. Essay by Joanna L. Cresswell.
A gentle meditation on motherhood and female identity.
Photographs and text by Hady Barry.
An epic photographic and mixed-media odyssey that reveals a family secret, takes us back in time and under the sea, and beyond.
Photographs by Ioanna Sakellaraki. Essay by Joanna L. Cresswell.
Tatiana Lopez’s lush cyanotype portraits of Sapara women portray the intertwined connections between dreams, body, and nature.
Photographs and artwork by Tatiana Lopez. Essay by Magali Duzant.
In her book “Some Say Ice”— an eerie portrait of the people, places and animals of the small Midwestern town of Black River Falls—Alessandra Sanguinetti confronts photography’s uneasy relationship to life and death.
Photographs by Alessandra Sanguinetti. Essay by Sophie Wright.
Following the trail of an unresolved 30-year long treasure hunt in France, Emily Graham translates the obsession, symbolism and fever-dream determination encircling the ongoing mystery into an equally-enigmatic photobook.
Photographs by Emily Graham. Book review by Joanna L. Cresswell.
Condensing the horrors of a month of Sicilian wildfires into a single image, Simona Bonnano’s monochrome record of a night spent in the centre of the action swells with tension and enigma.
Photographs by Simona Bonanno. Text by Joanna L. Cresswell.
These decorative commemorative plates are imaginary “celebrations” of injustices, contradictions and hypocrisies by US presidents over the years — facts and events that are often diminished or omitted from official history.
Photographs and text by Kathleen Clark
Life-size photographs become stage sets in which the photographer then places herself, interacting with the images to create new combined pictures that evoke meditations on time, distance, and longing.
Photographs and text by Jiayue Yu.
Making poetry out of her intimate domestic rituals, Ruth Lauer Manenti casts her home in the Catskill Mountains as the main character in “Excerpts,” a slow-burning series on the charged atmosphere of our everyday spaces.
Photographs and text by Ruth Lauer Manenti.
The largest ecological crime in Brazilian history — the collapse of a dam that released millions of cubic meters of toxic mine tailings in 2015 — continues to contaminate land the size of Portugal. Yet survivors were each given only 5 minutes to testify to its impact.
Photographs by Rebeca Binda. Essay by Joanna L. Cresswell.
Weaving together Andean folklore and Catholic iconography, Marisol Mendez’s bold and beautiful portraits celebrate the syncretic culture of her home country, Bolivia, through its womxn.
Photographs by Marisol Mendez. Interview by Sophie Wright.
In her project “FloodZone,” Anastasia Samoylova explores the steady decay of her adopted-home of Miami, searching for a new photographic language to depict climate change.
Photographs by Anastasia Samoylova. Interview by Clare Samuel.
In “Nā́rī,” Spandita Malik collaborates with Indian women in the creation of embroidered portraits on fabric, subverting traditional ideas of artistic production and opening a space of creative freedom.
Photographs by Spandita Malik. Essay by Magali Duzant.
These images start as drawings, then become temporary constructions that are photographed and then become flat again — playing with the illusion of depth and volume on a 2-dimensional picture plane.
Photographs and text by Rebecca Horne.
Self-portraits from above: an ongoing series of photographs documenting the landscapes of Beirut during the isolation of Covid, catastrophic explosions, and crippling inflation.
Photographs and text by Rima Maroun.
This long-term photography project follows four young Arab women as they contend with hostilities, prejudice and vibrant daily life in Israel, their home country.
An exhibition and book by Iris Hassid. Review by Jim Casper.
This long-term photographic project draws attention to the multiple uses of make-shift cages in efforts to constrain and protect property in the harsh environment of the Namib desert.
Photographs and text by Margaret Courtney-Clarke.
Californian Mimi Plumb gives us a slow-burning view of San Francisco from the moment she first encountered it, leading us through the people and places that she met across four decades of a life lived in and around the “Golden City.”
Photographs by Mimi Plumb. Book review by Joanna L. Cresswell.
A poetic, photographic meditation on the relentless power of Nature to reclaim its territory — it also poses questions about the mutability of human memory.
Photographs and text by Anamaria Chediak.
