“Is it possible to leave everything behind? To start anew, outside and beyond known ways of living, reimagining what it means to exist as body and soul on this earth?” These questions shaped Carmen Winant’s exploration of radical reinvention, particularly in the context of the separatist lesbian communities of the 1970s. During this process, Winant became close to Carol Newhouse, the co-founder of WomanShare, a lesbian feminist community on the West Coast of the United States.
The ongoing dialogue between Winant and Newhouse has taken the form of several collaborative projects that examine the impact of feminist movements of the period, viewed through the lens of Carol Newhouse’s practice and photographic archive documenting the WomanShare collective. This medium has become an essential tool for her to assert and control her own representation.
For the Rencontres d’Arles, Winant and Newhouse created a unique work that blends their stories, passions, and questions. For a year, they engaged in a photographic dialogue—one using a roll of film, rewinding it, and then sending it across the country, where the other exhibited it again—using the technique of double exposure to create a play of layers in their images.
This technique was employed by Newhouse and her colleagues to question the singularity of images and the notion of the uniqueness of the author—often male.
Through this creative collaboration, the two artists reclaim feminist photographic strategies. Drawing on a series of Newhouse’s images from the early days of WomanShare, they invite us to reflect on how we reinvent ourselves and our stories—both individually and collectively—through self-representation and interconnectedness. Their visual conversation explores intergenerational relationships and feminist political legacies while updating experimental photographic practices of the past.
Nina Strand (Curator)
Carol Newhouse and Carmen Winant – Double
Cruise Exhibition
July 7 – October 5, 2025
9:30 AM – 7:30 PM
