A House With No Walls Where Persimmons Grow in The Garden: Photography as a Collaborative Feminist Practice and Using Archives to Reframe the Present

Author

jada wheeler, Portland State UniversityFollow

First Advisor

Emily Fitzgerald

Date of Award

Spring 5-25-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Arts and Letters and University Honors

Department

Art + Design

Language

English

Subjects

photography, feminism, art, generational experience, chosen family, collaboration

Abstract

A House With No Walls is an investigation of the idea of chosen family, as it exists apart from the influence of any institution. It alludes to the home as a place that exists within space shared with the people we choose as family and within our own free bodies. This project investigates the collaborative potential of photography, and uses it as a tool in creating a feminist representation of family. All the photographs were made with close friends, in an unplanned and spontaneous manner, to document intimate moments of our everyday lives.

Where Persimmons Grow In The Garden is an investigation of the origin of home and reframing women as the life givers that allow us to build our home. It challenges the idea that family and home comes from the institutional concept of marriage that is heavily influenced by religion and imposes binary ideologies within the concept of home and family.

Rights

rights reserved to author

Recommended Citation

wheeler, jada, "A House With No Walls Where Persimmons Grow in The Garden: Photography as a Collaborative Feminist Practice and Using Archives to Reframe the Present" (2025). University Honors Theses. Paper 1739.