Conversation with Kaucyila Brooke, Woman's Building and Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 2002

In this conversation with Kaucyila Brooke, she focuses on her photographic project titled Burned, which she began in 1998 following a wildfire in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Brooke explains that she initially photographed the burned landscape for her image-text project Tit for Twat, a satirical photo-novella reimagining the biblical creation story with a lesbian couple, Madam and Eve: “I thought I would make a response to the religious right, just sort of investigate this whole issue about creationism and narratives of origin.” The starkness of the burned area allowed her to explore the land’s contours and examine how cultural narratives shape our understanding of nature and sexuality. “There was no vegetation to interrupt how you understood the way the mounds of earth were next to each other.” Although visually dramatic, her work critiques traditional pastoral beauty in favor of a more complex, sometimes aggressive representation. This approach resonates with her desire to move beyond restrictive artistic labels, allowing for a more fluid understanding of identity and artistic production within a feminist discourse.

Brooke recalls her involvement with anarchist lesbian collectives in Eugene, Oregon, in the late 1970s, where she also worked at a feminist radio station. She contrasts this with her later experiences in the art world, where hierarchical structures and individualistic ambitions often overshadowed collaboration. Coming from a community-oriented background, Brooke feels an affinity with the feminist art movement of the 70s rather than the politically driven art of the 80s, where artists like Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer led a resurgence of politically engaged work with clear, agenda-driven messages. “But I tend to make discursive work that raises a number of issues and creates a dialectic so that the viewer has to decide their own position,” she explains.

There was a gap in feminist discourse in the early 90s amidst the decline of the left, a period marked by cuts to arts funding and social programs that significantly impacted the feminist art movement, including the Woman’s Building, where Brooke now has her studio: “But the curious thing was that, about 96, 97, young women started coming to Cal Arts, who wanted to know what happened to the feminist art movement.”

The conversation ends with a visit to Griffith Park, where Brooke takes Kirsten Dufour and Andrea Creutz for a walk in the area she photographed for Burned and Tit for Twat.