Women Alternative Photography Group is a feminist research project celebrating women, trans, and non-binary artists from all backgrounds working with alternative photographic processes. Founded in March 2023 by artist and researcher Dr. Elizabeth Ransom, the Women Alternative Photography Group aims to foster the development of new knowledge and research, promote and support underrepresented groups, and create a community of likeminded people.
Mission
Our mission is to celebrate the contributions of women photographers using alternative photographic processes in today’s contemporary art world in order to inform and challenge current artistic canons and provoke social change. Women Alternative Photography Group is an international research project which is dedicated to elevating the voices of women, trans and nonbinary artists working with darkroom processes globally. At it’s core Women Alternative Photography Group is commitment to researching and distributing new knowledge on those using innovative and experimental processes as well as historical techniques that are currently being reinvigorated and reinvented.
Who we mean by women?
“The lived experience of women does not just stop at identifying as a woman, it is intersected by race, sexuality, class, disability, and neurodiversity. As well issues such as migration, geography, wealth, and poverty have a major impact on women’s lives. A multidimensional and intersectional approach to investigating the representation of women photographers must be employed so as not to exclude the experiences that shape women’s lives“. – Dr. Elizabeth Ransom, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: Women in Photography Changes In Policy and Practice
At Women Alternative Photography Group we expand the notion of women to include queer, trans, non-binary, and gender diverse artists to advocate and champion voices who continue to be underrepresented in the contemporary art world.
What we mean be alternative photographic processes?
This term is often used interchangeably with experimental photography, darkroom photography, handmade photography, expanded photography and historic processes. Alternative photography includes, but is not limited to processes such as cyanotype, photograms, soil chromatography, lumen printing, film soup, etc.
Team
Dr. Elizabeth Ransom
Founder and Director
Elizabeth Ransom is an artist and researcher whose work explores the intersection of transnationality, feminism, and alternative photographic processes. Her practice draws on the lived experiences of migration to examine homesickness, memory, and belonging through experimental image making.
Ransom has recently completely her PhD at the University for the Creative Arts. Her research engages theories of place attachment, nostalgia, and declarative episodic memory, with a particular focus on transnational feminism.
Ransom holds a PhD, MFA in Photography and a PGCE from the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, England. As well as a BA in Fine Art from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in the UK, India, Mexico, China, Poland, and the United States.
www.elizabethransom.com
Women Alternative Photography Group 