Edith Cowan: An Extraordinary Woman – Child Protection by Eva Fernandez

Medium: Photography Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Size: 800 x 800x 30

This photograph is from a series which honours the revolutionary Edith Cowan on the 100-year anniversary of becoming the first woman elected to Australian parliament. Edith Cowan succeeded in campaigning for women’s rights in parliament, equality within the legal profession and in the family as well as child protection.

My work challenges and confronts the structures of society of the time, and the attitudes and obstacles that women have had to overcome in order to attain political and legal representation. My work also explores the mistreatment of women in the contemporary political sphere as reflected in recent incidences of misconduct perpetrated against women within this institution.

This piece represents Edith Cowan’s work with child protection as well as her own difficult start to life, with the death of her mother and execution of her father, convicted of murder.