Pissing Women

Sophy Rickett
Pissing Women 1995

1st edition, 2023
Climax Books

40 pages
Size 21 × 27 cm

From the press release:

In 1994, Sophy Rickett began photographing herself and her friends urinating on the streets of London. Shot at night and dressed in officewear, a bodily function usually performed discreetly by women was staged openly in public — an act more commonly associated with men. Moving through London’s financial district after hours, the resulting images — both deadpan and performative — became Rickett’s seminal series Pissing Women, now published in its entirety for the first time by Climax Books.

The work emerged at a defining moment. The early internet was on the verge of reshaping the cultural landscape, while increased surveillance followed events such as the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing. Within this atmosphere, Rickett, recently out of art school, belonged to a generation of female photographers engaging both personal and social perspectives, reframing everyday experience as commentary on a changing urban and technological environment.

Pissing Women is the inaugural publication of Climax Books and includes 26 photographic plates, a foreword by Anne Turyn — photographer and founder of Top Stories — and a long-form interview with Sophy Rickett.

Edited by Isabella Burley
Designed by Christopher Lawson