A manual on female dairy cows provides a portal for Odette England to unearth the latent truths of her girlhood, formed in the deeply gendered community of family-run dairy farming. Sequencing hauntingly mysterious images with succinctly insightful text, England explores conventions, offering an expansive and empowering response in their place. 

In this book group, Odette England discusses, among other things:

Listening and living with your work

Making photographs as a conversation - before having a context or conceptual frame

Employing sincerity 

An economy of text and image

Making in community and the importance of collaboration

Color as character

“A vertical experience of a horizontal wish” 

Non-conforming females

Photos as slippery storytellers

Gifts & Omens

Referenced in the episode

Sexual Politics of Me - Carol J. Adams

Green Eyes - Marguerite Duras

Ordinary Affects - Kathleen Stuart

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Lightwork

Saint Lucy Press

Cara Buzzell

The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano

Decasia - Bill Morrison

Odette England Website | Instagram

Engage with J. Sybylla Smith  https://www.jsybyllasmith.com Instagram @jsybylla and Facebook @j.sybylla.smith