Rage 4 Rights is an ongoing series documenting the controversial group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, and its dedication to the fight for equality and access to free/safe legal abortions available to all women in the United States through daring, nonviolent, disruptive protest that illuminate that rage women are feeling after Roe vs Wade was overturned.

I bear witness to this movement as a feminist heeding the call to document the continued fight for women, non-binary, and trans rights. The images I see coming out of the current abortion movement are predominantly shot by men; solid work but not reflective of the rage we are feeling. As a woman I have bled for decades, almost died in childbirth, and been told that I could not have a hysterectomy, regardless of the excruciating pain and bleeding I was experiencing, because I was of “childbearing age”. My experience as a woman is not unusual. My ability to comfortably discuss taboo and stigmatized subjects without shame, is.

My goal for this project is to document the movement and amplify voices typically underrepresented, such as women, non-binary, and trans. Often, the conversation of women’s health is compartmentalized by stigmas and taboos. Instead of our society having a clear concise understanding to the physical trauma women experience with their bodies, its significance has been trivialized to a romanticized picture of happy women excited to have babies… at any cost, including our own death. The reality is far from the truth.

The desired outcome of this series is to explore questions we are not comfortable talking about and provide a safe space for those who feel alone in their unbridled emotions at the loss of our rights. As I connect and collaborate with others, our voice strengthens, and address the real question of “why are women not trusted to make all decisions for their own bodies... As men have always done for themselves.”

The large number of enthusiastic responses were a treasure trove, and at the onset choosing a single one seemed impossible. There was pathos, humor, moving documentation, and more. I had hoped to find many issue-orientated blind submissions by women of color, but found few I could recognize as such. When I boiled down my original thirty-plus choices to three and asked for more information on the artists, I found that I had selected three white women in California. I finally chose an obvious activist on a crucial women’s issue - Mykle Parker’s innovative images of abortion demos with Rage 4 Rights, offering models for ongoing public expressions of love and anger. I hope to see her award devoted to future experimental activism.

The two runners-up both deal inventively with climate chaos. Barbara Boissevain’s Salt of the Earth consists of striking images of Salt Ponds in San Francisco, simultaneously abstract and factual. Laurel Anderson’s Schrödinger’s Cat offers her personal experience of loss from wildfire - destroyed artifacts being re-used, such as eggs frying in a burned pot, a pristinely beautiful bed in open air. Both of these artists seem to be well on their way to effectively presenting their work, and I hope to see more of them.

As a feminist activist for more than five decades, I found a great many familiar themes in this panoply of visual ideas. Sometimes the project descriptions didn’t sync with the imagery and vice versa, par for the course in issue-oriented work. Portraits, of self and others, were ubiquitous. Age, gender preference, mental health, motherhood, and female generations continue to be frequent subjects, as they have been since the beginning of second-wave feminist art. Long may it thrive in powerful projects like those submitted.

- Lucy Lippard • Writer, Art Critic, Activist, & Curator