There is great power in representation. Phenomxnal Womxn works to reform the relationship between image-maker, image and subject by using visual art and storytelling as languages to communicate with women from local communities and document their stories.
The project explores how, together, we can create spaces for womxn to reclaim their own narratives. Art becomes a medium that speaks volumes about how people’s differences are ultimately what make us the same – humxn.
Phenomxnal Womxn is a project that takes an intimate look into the lives of women through photography and storytelling.
We highlight the incredible strengths in overcoming adversities that women endure in everyday life while redefining what it means to be womxn.
noun
The term Womxn was created as an alternative and more inclusive term than the word women. It rejects the notion that woman is a subset of man, while encompassing the intersectional realities and histories lived by women as well as the racial, discriminatory and institutional barriers that they face. The genesis of the term Womxn roots itself in the systemic oppression of black and transgender communities, emancipates itself from patriarchal structures, and creates new spaces for womxn – with an emphasis on coloured and LGBTQ+ womxn – to manifest independently.
How can photography change and challenge the ways that we learn from women living in different contexts than our own? How can images be used to empower, elevate and celebrate women from around the world? These are the underlying questions that have driven the work behind Phenomxnal Womxn.
We hosted the Phenomxnal Womxn Community Exhibition to launch the first phase of the project that took place in Ghana. Check out the celebration.
Akwaaba!