Author Description

Self-photography as a performative act by women artists, sharpened by their active role in shooting the photos, allows the gaze of the other to enter only after the fact. The theoretical positions of feminism are evident in the performative photographic practices of Francesca Woodman, Carolee Schneeman, Martha Wilson, Valie Export, Birgit Jürgenssen, Friedl Kubelka, or Carola Dertnig and many others. The present volume shows 35 positions which, through interviews and commentaries on the works, allow affinities to be drawn with and followed through to queer and gay theory and the discussion of minority rights, as well as postcolonial studies and ecological movements. The texts by Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein and Abigail Solomon-Godeau recapitulate the history of the intensive crossing of women's self-photography, emancipation, gender theory, and performance.