WOMAN

EAST BAY PHOTO COLLECTIVE X COUNTER COLLECTIVE

Image by Angela DeCenzo

Womanhood is an experience. With all of the glamor and grace that comes with being a woman, there is also messiness and frustration. For this exhibition, East Bay Photo Collective has partnered with Counter Collective to explore what it means to be a woman today.

We collected submissions that explore all facets of womanhood – from feelings, to symbolic objects, to gestures or forms or self-expression. With this work, we would like to examine the complexities of womanhood and femininity beyond the confines of assigned sex, age, or location.

Photographic works were prioritized for this open call, but other visual artists, time-based artists, and writers were encouraged to apply. This exhibition features 57 works of visual art, 4 written works, a collaborative zine, and 2 short films.

Absent No. 3
Absent No. 2
Absent No. 8
By Anita White
MISTY, Respiratory Care Therapist, San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA by Gabrielle Rondell Photography

“These caring women share a common humanity

as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and friends… not just medical workers.

They give up a great deal by sacrificing their health

and the health of their families for the well being of others. 

These women are warriors.”

— Gabrielle Rondell Photography, about her series Our Care Workers

Janitizo by Lizzy Montana Myers
Audrey and Her Water Buffalo by Angela DeCenzo
Ripe Fruit by Heather McAlister
      Maria by Leslie Ramirez
Thousand Yard Stare by Baia Vargas
Woman in plaza- Santa Tecla, El Salvador by Zee R.
       Maria y el  Cortapastos by Leslie Ramirez

“Women embody the spirit of strength,

resilience, power, and love.

Maria, a beautiful hard-working soul,

is one of many living examples

I was fortunate enough to capture.”

— Leslie Ramirez

  • On the sixth day, my curls came back.

    Two men smoke cigarettes in the rain,

    they trace their breath.

    I remember how I felt yesterday but not today.

    On the freeway, everyone lurched.

    Everyone was late to work.

    Crystal Island is painted gray,

    it’s corporate,

    massage prices are up to 19.99.

    Everything’s tagged and tethered:

    two brando cars,

    a yellow rose bush,

    a tub of CoffeeMate.

    Somebody’s collecting rain.

    I don’t walk around the neighborhood anymore,

    it’s too empty.

    People are more afraid.

    People are driving vans into warehouses,

    they want weed and money and cars.

    I walk home with my hands choked around my keys.

    Neighbors hang wet clothes over the fence.

    I forget about my sanctuaries.

    The alarm goes off.

Endangered by Zimo Zhao
  • We filed in one by one to the restaurant beside the Laney College lots, where the cooking school

    wheeled out cheap creations for half price. “Do you remember Ben, from Oakland

    Undercurrents?” Bernadette asked Ami and me as we sat with our thighs stuck to maroon booths.

    “He's a child molester,” she said, as she stirred her fogged-up cup of ice and Coca-Cola. We

    turned to each other, not aware of this swim team, only the out-stretched blue of one-piece suits

    with pills of polyester, where we changed in supply closets among foam boards and powder for

    our caps.

    With wet skin, we watched beauty school students roll by with suitcases filled with curlers,

    plastic heads tucked under their arms. The curved lip of the pool dipped into lines that made our

    little bellies crawl, and we’d hurl out of the water to settle upon the warm parts of concrete,

    outlines of hips and bones like disappearing chalk.

    Too bad those lessons couldn’t stay sweet like crooked somersaults, like Ami asking me home

    for dinner, and Bernadette nodding Sure, a few more kick-turns till gates interlock, like summer’s

    done for the day.

Hannah Crying, Oakland 2022 by Claire Mara
The Weight by Jessica Oler
Mahathi in the Sun by Alaina Jane
G&J, Marseille 2021 by Claire Puginier

Unamused Woman

By Neva Ryan

An afterlife, where I am not still or frozen on my back, uneven posture crawling forward, like twisted sheets, like un-vaselined lips. I clean my room and everything is presentable. Ami says I’m like her mama, I like to keep clean for company. But in private, I run out of words and gape my mouth open like I'm surprised a man buying Mother’s Day flowers for his wife is checking me out.

I’m too lazy to go on bad dates. I just want to lay in the sun under a parasol, sucking strawberries, puckering my lips. Tell me how to do it, I want to ask someone, call someone, but I’m playing phone tag and my tongue is twisted, gaping mouth. Say something. Remember cupped hands in crowds. A curled distance. Walking down the street with bare legs and mean men, sashaying their heads to look out back windows.

I call out a boy who catted. He says I guess. After crawfish and the river, after thighs bathe beneath banality of one Sunday of rest, I gather a bouquet drunkenly, put it on the dash, motion for him to sit. He says he is allergic. There’s something about touch. This becomes a day where I remember things. The river keeps you young. He said that to me and the current was strong. I held onto the plastic handle, clipped my feet, told myself to jump off the rock. I said I was done with dumb kid rambunctiousness. He picks up my voice wrong. We cross the river to nothing. Half-standing up, I hope he doesn’t notice.

Blue Stalls

By Neva Ryan

Ami and I were best friends but we were sometimes okay with hanging out with Melanie and Naomi and Ivee and Andrew had a crush on me and Ami had a crush on Bao and Ami got mad at me because I told him. But I didn’t wanna have a crush on anyone and everybody said don’t be so hard on Lauda because her mom’s so hard on her but she once pulled me into a blue stall when Ms. Santana was scrolling on her hefty desktop online Scrabble game and asked if I could be her bathroom buddy.

But in those blue stalls

She shoved her tongue down my throat

And said let’s play girlfriends

And I didn’t really like it but I also thought

It was fine since by then we were five or six

And trying new things everyday

Like stealing plastic bears from bins to take home

And trying to spell our last names

But when she locked the door to the stall

I didn’t want to

And when I told her I wasn’t gonna play anymore,

She shrugged and moved on to Alexa.

In high school, Lauda changed her name to Laura because her mom said she should. I never told Ami, but when I went across town to the big public high school with the dusty white pillars, I saw a few faces from Escuelita, but not Ami’s since she got that scholarship to College Prep, and Lauda-now-Laura, said nothing to me as she walked down the hallway with her big purse (instead of a backpack) on her arm.

      Growth by Beth Zuckerman

Meet the Artists

About Counter Collective

The Counter Collective was founded in the summer of 2020 to create a space that elevates the voices of those looked over in traditional art circles. We aim to provide the opportunity for female-identifying and non-binary folx to share their work in established spaces, to hold workshops to encourage their practices, and overall, to create a network where we can exchange ideas and encourage each other’s growth.

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