Cass Bird

Over the past ten years, Cass Bird (born 1974) has established herself as one of the foremost portraitists of contemporary America. Her photographs of young women and men casually draw attention to the fluid expression of gender roles and androgyny in today’s youth culture, and to what she has described as “the convergence of alternative lifestyles with accepted conceptions of motherhood, nurturing and family.” In the summers of 2009 and 2010, Bird traveled to Sassafrass, Tennessee, with a group of young women, a wardrobe of diaphanous dresses and a camera. These women--studio assistants, friends, or women cast from the streets of New York--had been selected by Bird for their ease with their sexual identities, but also for their relative awkwardness in front of the lens. The result was Rewilding, a joyous portrait of modern femininity and a frolicking celebration of women’s camaraderie.