What's in a name? In Stung with Love, I examined the difference between the terms sapphic and lesbian. These look back 2500 years to the poet Sappho who lived on the island of Lesbos. In contrast, the term dyke is relatively recent. First used about 100 years ago, it was a pejorative term for a lesbian who looked masculine or butch. It was certainly an insult when used by straight men. But towards the end of the 20th century, 'dyke' was reclaimed as a badge of pride by the lesbian community. In much the same way, 'queer' used to be a pejorative term for homosexual men but has been reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole.
The American photographer Catherine Opie is a heroine of the lesbian art world. In the early 1990s she was photographing the queer community of Los Angeles to make them more visible. Later in the decade, she travelled thousands of miles across America to photograph lesbian couples and families in their homes. She displayed the photographs in the exhibition 'Domestic'. This was a counterpoint to the 1991 Museum of Modern Art exhibition 'Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort', from which lesbian representations were conspicuously absent. I particularly like her photograph (right to left) 'Flipper, Tanya, Chloe & Harriet, San Francisco, California, 1995'. Shown below. I saw this in 'Catherine Opie: To Be Seen', an exhibition of her work at the National Portrait Gallery earlier this year.
In 1995, Catherine Opie created a set of playing cards called The Dyke Deck. This featured portraits of friends and strangers in the San Francisco queer community.
Fast forward 30 years. It's early Thursday evening and I am at The Photographers' Gallery in Soho for the exhibition 'Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to Now'. I wanted to catch this before it closes in a few weeks' time. But I didn't get any further than the venue's reception area. I couldn't help noticing a large gathering of young to middle-aged women in the bar area. Many of them were clearly couples. I suddenly realised that I was surrounded by lesbians and there were at least a hundred of them.
Quite unknown to me, The Photographers' Gallery was hosting an event at the same time to launch the London Dyke Deck. Inspired by Catherine Opie's earlier creation, this is a new pack of playing cards designed by the young British lesbian photographer Ellen Kydd. The pack features photographs of her friends in the London dyke community – many of whom were apparently at the launch. In the deck, Hearts are femme, Clubs are butch, Diamonds are trans, and Spades are non-binary. Ellen Kydd herself and Catherine Opie are the two jokers in the pack.
I stayed on for the event. This began with a discussion between Ellen Kydd and the curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley (pictured above). Ellen Kydd spoke warmly of Catherine Opie's significant contribution to the dyke community worldwide. She noted how few London spaces there were for the dyke community to congregate and promised to organise some events to try to create more such spaces.
Afterwards the party continued. Ellen Kydd went downstairs to the venue bookshop to sign gift-boxed copies of the London Dyke Deck. I bought one of these and had a short but inspiring conversation with Ellen before leaving for my next engagement.
This unexpected but glorious exprerience has revived my inner lesbian. Watch out everyone.