The City of Ladies

2017 - CEMENTA, Kandos, NSW

The City of Ladies was an installation constructed in a paddock in Kandos at CEMENTA arts festival. Centred around the Caravan Camera Obscura, the work draws on the allegorical city imagined by Christine de Pizan in her 15th-century feminist text The Book of the City of Ladies, in which an imaginary city is built to celebrate and defend the lives and achievements of women.

A 30-metre length of pink elastic traced an anamorphic drawing of the city across the landscape. Distorted and abstracted when viewed from outside, the drawing could be seen in correct perspective, at 9 × 9 cm scale, from inside the camera obscura. The city could be moved through and inhabited, as well as viewed upside down and in reverse through the camera.

The installation incorporated drypoint etchings and a performance involving Claire Conroy, Marty Jay and Yul Scarf. The work considers the city as a metaphor for feminism as an ongoing and evolving project, continuing to be built through communication, collaboration and collective action.

Photo documentation of performance by Freya Ververis.