on wimmin’s land: panel organized in collaboration with places journal and the university of oregon special collection
Earlier this fall, Places collaborated with the University of Oregon College of Design to co-sponsor a panel discussion inspired by Sasha Archibald’s 2021 article “On Wimmin’s Land.” The hybrid event was held in-person at the Knight Library on the university’s campus in Eugene, and live-streamed on Zoom.
In her presentation, Archibald discussed the research undergirding her Places article, which explores the utopian project of lesbian separatist communes such as Cabbage Lane, OWL Farm, and WomanShare that proliferated in the 1970s in the woods and valleys of Southern Oregon. Coinciding with the exhibition “Sharing Circles: Carol Newhouse and the WomanShare Collective” at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, the panel addressed “the legacy and future of Oregon’s women’s lands, and the telling of their stories in artworks, exhibitions, scholarship, and intergenerational dialogue.”
Joining Archibald on the panel were photographer Carol Newhouse, who co-founded WomenShare outside Grants Pass in 1974; artist Carmen Winant, curator of the Wexner Center show; and UO archivist and curator Linda Long, who established the Oregon Lesbian Land Manuscript Collections in the UO libraries — the archives from which Archibald’s research emerged.
The panel was organized by art historian Rae Root, a doctoral candidate at UO and curatorial research assistant for the Wexner Center exhibition, and moderated by UO English and environmental studies professor Stephanie LeMenager.
The complete proceedings can be viewed here.