“Michigan is a conscious experiment in living according to feminist principles, and what that means is very complicated.”

For the first time ever the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival is being visually documented by photographer Angela Jiminez. Officially released at the Festival in the summer of 2009, Jiminez’s photographic documentary chronicles three years of the “herstoric” festival.

Jiminez, a 34 year-old Brooklyn based journalist/documentarian photographer is a regular contributor to The New York Times and a contract photographer with the Getty Images Creative Department.

In 2003, while on assignment for Velvetpark Magazine, a lesbian publication, she first discovered the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, or Michigan as it has come to be known as. A little nervous about the unfamiliar idea of an all female environment, she left the event “deeply inspired to go back. Michigan is a major part of herstory. It is aging and its story has gone largely untold.”

Michigan was created in 1976 by than 19 year-old Lisa Vogel, her sister Kristie and Mary Kindig “as a response to perceived misogyny, sexism, and homophobia” of the time. These three women have witnessed too many female musicians and stagehands become victims of harassment at events run by heterosexual men. As a result, Michigan was, and still is feminist-minded women run musical event that allows women to just be, and finally feel at home without any heteronormative rules and restrictions.

The Vogels and Kindig purchased 650 acres of land in Hart, Michigan with funds raised by sponsors and fundraisers. “The Land” as it is lovingly referred to is now the permanent home to the Festival.

All of the stages, buildings, light systems, cooks, babysitters, and anything else facilitated are run by women. All decisions about the Festival are made by these women. All women are welcome to attend, and certain sub-cultures of women are made to feel welcome through various “healing communities” such as “Womyn of Colour” only spaces, special arrangements for women with disabilities, and sign language interpretation stations. No base is ever left uncovered.

On top of the musical performances with such past acts as Tracy Chapman, Melissa Ferrick, Tegan and Sara, and Sarah McLachlan, there are workshops, campfires, movies under the stars, drum gatherings, dances, and sweat lodges to name a few events. Perhaps this community-oriented, grass roots festival can only be told truthfully through photographs. This is what Angela Jiminez has done.

“Inspired by the Do-It-Yourself spirit of the Festival” Jiminez has not only captured the labour-of-love that goes into the project year after year. She has also documented her own journey at times in a very explicitly pure fashion of being a labourer for the Festival.

Each one of her photos evokes a feeling of community. The Land is returned to a natural state once the Festival is over. All the stages are taken down, the electrical components are removed, and everything is left as it once was. Jiminez has captured both the natural scene of the Land before the Festival, and compares it to what it is after. “I watched a community form around this process.”

Each worker’s story has been documented on film. Photos depicting the sense of community and belonging show how strong the bond of women can be, and how powerful the sense of “coming home” to be oneself is. These women come every year and volunteer their time to ensure that the legacy of The Michigan Womyn’s Festival stays as true and pure as it was in 1976.

Although Michigan has met its fair share of controversy with its “womyn born womyn” policy, which mandates that womyn attending and working the Festival must be born a girl, lived as a girl, and presently identify as a womyn, it has largely been somewhat of a secret society. Jiminez tells a story with her pictures, and we can now have a sneak peak. When viewing these photographs, however, one comes to realize that not all is told. One can only know everything by being there. The sense of accomplishment that must come year after year, and the be-as-you-are environment could never be replicated on paper. What Jiminez does do instead, is make us want to be there ourselves, and to yearn to be welcomed home.

Welcome Home: Building the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and prints from the book are available online at www.thewelcomehomebook.com.