This week for Eyes on the South, we take a look at the work of Marcie Hancock. Marcie says,

This series is a narrative investigation of the man-woman and culture-nature dichotomies. While these comparisons are more metaphorical than literal, they lend themselves to the understanding of how objectification, gender, and oppression translate between systems of being. A collection of environmental interactions and inanimate matter, the role of gender is placed in question in order to identify the cultural expectations and areas of interest that have been in many ways divvied up between the sexes. These ecological metaphors pull inspiration from the ecofeminist writings of Emma Bell Miles, regional folklore, and the woman-nature comparison upheld by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston. I have found these relationships to be particularly relevant within Appalachia, and as I am emerging into a new stage of womanhood, the work has become a personal investigation as much as an anthropological one. The story has evolved into one of thick-skinned femininity and my own struggle to determine what makes a 'good woman.' This work has much further to go.