Our Forbidden Land – Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin began her photography career photographing her children and had worked in publishing prior to her marriage. She’s quoted as saying she’d have liked to have been an adventure-documentary photographer, instead she focussed on producing photo books. Whilst she considered herself more a documentary photographer, she produced beautiful black and white landscape images often that had a luminosity to rival the work of Ansel Adams.

Our Forbidden Land was published as Godwin’s response to what she saw as oppressive agencies who blocked public access to land particularly for ramblers. Her images are accompanied by text which often describes the arguments she had with farmers and landowners. (Taylor, 1994)

Upon visiting Stonehenge, she found that it had been fenced off. Godwin documented the fencing, the underpass and the general ‘theme park’ nature of the site. She also went about trying to get access to the site under the guise of being an art photographer. At every turn she was met with opposition in what Taylor describes as “bureaucratic intimidation” (Taylor, 1994).

There are of course gender issues here. As a Woman, who was working for herself, she wasn’t taken seriously by the ‘authorities’ and therefore worked from the periphery and as Taylor describes, “she aligns herself with the outsiders”. This outsiders view is what she presented. Rather than beautiful shots of ‘the stones’, she documented the barriers that prevented access.

Within mythic structures of course there are elements of the (male) hero who is only able to cross the boundary. We can also apply the idea of the ‘feminine’ land which is to be conquered, controlled or mastered by the male hero. Putting feminism aside (tentatively), Godwin’s work contributed to the ‘right to roam’ movement launched by the Rambler’s association in 1985 which eventually resulted in “the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (known as CRoW)” in 2000. (Ramblers, 2020)

Bibliography

1. Taylor, J., 1994. A Dream Of England. Manchester [England]: Manchester University Press.
2. Faygodwin.com. 2020. Fay Godwin Homepage. [online] Available at: <http://www.faygodwin.com/obit.htm&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].
3. Atomised.co.uk. 2020. Fay Godwin: Photography, Environment And Activism – Atomised : Andrew Brown. [online] Available at: <https://atomised.co.uk/fay-godwin-photography-environment-and-activism&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].
4. Parkin, T., 2020. Fay Godwin. [online] On Landscape. Available at: <https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/01/master-photographer-fay-godwin/&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].
5. Ramblers.org.uk. 2020. Our History – Ramblers. [online] Available at: <https://www.ramblers.org.uk/about-us/our-history.aspx&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].