Slippages: Photographs by Linda Cummings
Edited by Kathy Battista. Introduction by Linda Cummings
Texts by Nancy Princenthal, Kathy Battista, Elise Morrison and Emna Zghal
The images of the decade-long performance based photographic project
Slippages is a landmark publication of photographs by American artist Linda Cummings. The book showcases over 60 high-quality duotone images spanning the decade from 1992 to 2003 and the last vestiges of analog photography. Cummings’ compositions toss expectation to the wind, transposing gender dynamics with a sleight of hand. The images convey Cummings’ innovative approach to photographic narrative through actions performed and photographed by the artist on-site, in locations as varied as steel mills, coal mines, churches, hospitals and stadiums, many long since disappeared. The photographs express the artist’s defiance, exuberance and anxiety amidst the upheavals of a declining industrial age and dawning of the digital era.
Cummings’ thought-provoking photographs are complemented with an introduction and four essays that extrapolate ideas from Cummings’s photographs and consider how social controversies of the last decade of the 20th century resurface today as the rights of bodily autonomy and gender identity continue to be challenged.
- The book presents Linda Cummings’ unique approach to photography and performance art.
- Cummings’ evocative compositions challenge gender norms and societal expectations, providing an original exploration of identity, defiance, and the cultural tensions of the late 20th century.
- All the photographs were taken on-site with an analog 35-mm manual film camera and printed by hand in a darkroom, with no manipulation post-capture.
From editor Kathy Battista: “Linda Cummings’ photographic series (1992 – 2002) was a feminist response to debates—waging then and unimaginably now—over emancipation of the female body, human rights, and legislation. Created during the last vestiges of analogue culture, her images capture fleeting moments of resistance, symbolizing how even small actions can represent a broader struggle against limitation and a celebration of personal autonomy. Like water wearing at a rock over time, each fling of the slip has a ripple effect, building up into a decisive shift.”