Political Letters

Political Letters by German artist Catrine Val travels to Inverness after premiering at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow in 2016. These staged photo-works, centre around the neglected canon of women in philosophy.

The series borrows its title from the writing of Dundee born Frances Wright (aka Fanny Wright, 1795-1852), a freethinker and  abolitionist who became an American citizen in 1825 and established the multiracial commune Nashoba in Tennessee, inspired by the socialism of Robert Owen and the virtues of emancipatory education in the fight against slavery. By choosing philosophy, and by linking the past to the present, Val’s project posits a renewed interest in humanitarian values and the production of knowledge as a counter-position to the interaction of science, economy and politics, which tends to be a domineering influence in contemporary culture.