Women of BACKBONE: Voices, Choices + Photographs from an Island in Alaska is a collaborative photographic and narrative project spanning more than two decades. First created in 1998 in a small island community in Southeast Alaska, the series invited women to represent themselves in the natural landscape, challenging silence, stigma, and the quiet pressures placed on women’s bodies and choices.
In 2024, the photographer returned to revisit the original participants and create new images, asking a simple but profound question: How has time changed the way we see ourselves? The result is a rare visual and personal record of women reflecting on identity, aging, agency, and resilience across a 26-year arc.
Blending fine-art photography with personal narrative and research-informed reflection, Women of BACKBONE sits at the intersection of art, gender, culture, and lived experience, offering an intimate portrait of women’s voices, choices, and evolving sense of self over time.
Women of BACKBONE: Voices, Choices + Photographs from an Island in Alaska is a collaborative photographic and narrative project spanning more than two decades. First created in 1998 in a small island community in Southeast Alaska, the series invited women to represent themselves in the natural landscape, challenging silence, stigma, and the quiet pressures placed on women’s bodies and choices.
In 2024, the photographer returned to revisit the original participants and create new images, asking a simple but profound question: How has time changed the way we see ourselves? The result is a rare visual and personal record of women reflecting on identity, aging, agency, and resilience across a 26-year arc.
Blending fine-art photography with personal narrative and research-informed reflection, Women of BACKBONE sits at the intersection of art, gender, culture, and lived experience, offering an intimate portrait of women’s voices, choices, and evolving sense of self over time.
PARTICIPATORY ART IN ACTIVISM
The WOMEN OF BACKBONE project serves as a prime example of the essential function of participatory art in feminist activism. It illustrates that self-representation is not only a bold act but also a significant personal journey. Through this initiative, women have reclaimed their bodies, asserted their identities, and forged connections that bridge generations. Returning to the photographic series in 2024 underscored its significance, emphasizing that empowerment, agency, and solidarity are pivotal to feminist artistic movements. In a socio-political landscape where representation is frequently dictated by external forces, WOMEN OF BACKBONE reinforces that self-expression is most profound when actively claimed and redefined by those who embody it.
INTRODUCTION
In the small island town of Petersburg, Alaska—Séet Ká in Lingít—gossip spreads quickly. In 1998, after I photographed a recently divorced woman unclothed in the woods, the whispers began. To diffuse the scandal, I invited women from town to join me in a collaborative photoshoot. Word spread, and what began as a response to small-town judgment soon became a growing, community-driven act of expression, solidarity, and choice.
Between 1998 and 2002, we completed six sessions. The women who participated weren’t models—they were neighbors, friends, artists, scientists, and mothers, each bringing her own story. The photos were raw, natural, and unapologetic—and mostly unseen.
Two decades later, I returned to the project, inviting original participants to revisit their images and to come back to Petersburg for four new photo shoots with a new generation of women. Each woman was given the choice of how, or if, her past image would be represented today. Some chose to alter their original photographs. A few of those revisions are included in this book, alongside the women’s voices.
WOMEN OF BACKBONE has always been rooted in agency, connection, and self-representation. Set on Séet Ká Kwáan, the traditional lands of the Lingít people, this project continues to grow as a living record of voice and choice, shaped by time, community, and the power of being seen, frame by frame.
- Bren Kleinfelder, DEd
ADELE’S STORY
I had seen a nude photograph Brenda had taken of my friend in late pregnancy out in nature. I loved it and asked her to take one of me, as I was also in the midst of a big life transition at the time. I wanted a nude photograph as a special gift for a close friend, so that’s what we did. While taking the photographs at Three Lakes, Brenda and I became aware of a few people watching us from afar. True to form in a small community, by the time we got back to town the rumors had already begun to percolate, and we were instantly notorious. Brenda felt badly for everyone involved—me, my ex-husband, my kids, and all the families. She came up with this great idea to gather as many women as possible from town to pose nude together as a show of support and solidarity to deflect and change the nature of the gossip. I’m not much of a group person, but I thought, “Yeah, I can go do that.” The first of these scandalous events took place at Ethel Bergmann’s homesite on Kupreanof Island. The shoot was important because all these women showed their support for me and Brenda simply by showing up in such terrible weather.That was the beginning of Brenda’s nude photo shoots.
I didn’t know Ethel well when I first moved to Petersburg in 1976, but I was aware that she had a store in town, that she had a reputation as a person who always stood up for herself, and that she was a role model for many of the women in the community. Yeah, Ethel and her friend Ruth … they weren’t the typical Norwegian Petersburg people—they were just themselves. People called Ruth the “Purple Librarian” because she wore purple most of the time, and I was one of her admirers. We need more people like Ruth and Ethel who stand firm and give support in a good, strong way. They were both down-to-earth and clear thinking, and as younger womenwe could look to them for clarity. That’s the kind of woman I want to be now that I’m 69.
The nude picture gossip in the town didn’t bother me, but going through my divorce was particularly hard in this town because the brother of the man I was divorcing was married to my first cousin, and so of course because we all live here in this tight little community, many people were affected. I was a leader in the local Lutheran Church at the time, and though I continued to attend services, I was ostracized by all but two of the congregation. Eventually, I moved away from the Church because of the hypocrisy and now worship at home with the universe. It was a tough time, but we all got through it.
When I turned 55, I suddenly became afflicted with really serious back pain. Initially, I thought that I had pulled a muscle, but after many tests it was discovered that I had a type of cancer called multiple myeloma—a cancer of your plasma cells that pulls the calcium out of your bones. As a result, my spine started compressing, and I lost nearly 4” from my neck to my hips—my backbone just went, “Chh!”
Then began a cancer battle that lasted three years and included two stem cell transplants. I was determined to survive. I had the love and support of my husband, who took time off from commercial fishing to spend the entire year helping me while undergoing treatments in Seattle. Despite the immense physical toll, I don’t really think about it taking much mental backbone for me to get through it because I had so much support, similar to having the group of women come out in support of me after the nude photograph gossip. When you’re surrounded by generous and caring people, it really changes your life. It can be lifesaving. What a proverbial “backbone” Brenda captured in all of us.
Women of BACKBONE: Voices, Choices + Photographs from an Island in Alaska by Bren Kleinfelder is a compelling photo narrative book focusing on identity, community, and self-expression in Petersburg Alaska (Séet Ká in indigenous Lingít). While Kleinfelder didn’t set out for this work to be feminist activism when she started the series in 1998, this participatory art work has nevertheless made a powerful statement.
Featuring the work from the initial photograph series spanning from 1998 to 2004, this book also chronicles Kleinfelder’s return to the series twenty years later in 2024 when the original group of participants was invited to return to Petersburg for another photoshoot alongside a new group of women. Kleinfelder gave the original woman the choice of how they’d like to be represented in the new series, and their creative decisions are very interesting to look at. Kleinfelder writes:
“These women didn’t just participate in a photo series—they shaped the project itself. And their decision to return in 2024, to reclaim these images on their own terms, speaks to the power of choice. It’s one thing to say we own our stories. It’s another to stand in them, unapologetically, decades later.” (p. 155)
I loved getting to know the women who participated and their stories of what the project meant to them both then and now. In this way, readers get to see both the outcome (Kleinfelder’s incredible photography) as well as hear about how being in these photoshoots felt for the participants, leading to a variety of perspectives blended together to form a larger story. It’s truly amazing to see how this impactful art project became so meaningful to the woman involved.
The different photographs—some of the whole group, others just individuals or a few women—makes for an engaging viewing experience. While the photographs are taken in the gorgeous Alaskan landscape, many also feature additional props or materials that allow for further creative expression to emerge. There is immense beauty in how Kleinfelder captures the women free of the stereotypical male gaze that society often casts upon women and their bodies: primal, raw, and free of expectation. Truthfully, I have been moved to tears every time I go through the book.
Kleinfelder does a wonderful job balancing the collective unity and strength of the group with the unique personal expression of the individual in her work. The book is curated to show the internal and external development and changes that happen through time, demonstrating that self-representation is not only a powerful statement, but also a deeply personal process. The message that self-representation can be continually redefined is potent medicine for the soul, as is the photographic honoring of the body in all stages and ages.
I HIGHLY recommend Women of BACKBONE for those interested in creative self-expression, specifically from a feminist lens, as it is an inspiring and empowering work to behold. It's incredible to read about the effect the project had on the participants in addition to seeing the stunning photographed results.