Based in East London, photographer Tania Olive has just
exhibited a series of images called Dyke of our Time at the
Freerange graduates show at The Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. Tania
received the best in show award for the series from the British
Journal of Photography and a few of the images and an interview
with her will feature in this month's edition of the BJP.
Here's what Tania told DIVA about the project, which can be seen
at her website (link below).
"I am a lesbian and I wrote my dissertation on female gender in
photography which inspired my research for my major project.
August Sander's Face of our Time has influenced me over the last
four years of studying and I wanted to do a project that could be
looked at in 20 or 50 years time that showed a group at a certain
time and place in history.
I have some amazing lesbian friends who I wanted to capture as a
body and show that we don't fit into these boxes of straight and
femme, that as a group we are diverse, like any other group.
Most of the women I shot are friends and a couple are friends of
friends, none of them so far have been complete strangers. I went
to everyone's homes to shoot them, because I was shooting them
deadpan. I wanted to shoot them in their own personal home
environment as a contrast to the regimented stance and look I
wanted from them.
The project is not just for lesbians. I think it has appeal to a
wider interest in the sense that it is showing you a group that is
not so much in the mainstream."
You can view the Dyke of our Time images at Tania's
website: taniaolive.com
PHOTO 'Kate' Courtesy of Tania Olive
