STONE SKIN

This is a working progress photo series.

This is a personal project that captures two of my favourite subjects: nature and the human body. Photography as a form of healing. Partly captured in an exercise of contemplation. Partly captured in an exercise of portraiture of nature.

Lanzarote brought my imagination to an utopian world. Warm and wild, dry and empty. There are almost no trees, almost no agriculture crops. Very few people. There are volcanos, and lava stones everywhere. I see them as sculptures, and in this world art can be experienced with all our senses, we can smell it and touch it. There are so many stones that I now connect to them as living organisms. I wonder if they can feel, breath, think? They must, i believe. Can they shapeshift into another body, being? And over time, as I walk over them, can we transfer our bodily qualities into one another? As I sit and lie endless hours on them, I get their heat, even the marks of their shapes on my body. What do they get from me, I wonder? Can our bodies merge into something new? What would that look like? A new skin, stone skin.

Growing up, I often felt paralysed and blocked in my own story. I felt stuck in past events and lost memories, and I often embodied emotions I didn't understand or accept. I felt unable and ashamed. My body was too often sick, which condition I associated with my identity. It took me a long time, a lot of courage, and hard work to change that perception. Perhaps I didn't feel brave enough to share this in my practice so straightforwardly until recently. As I come to terms with it, I realise that these experiences motivate a big part of my artistic expression.

Surrounded by this specific landscape, I felt the urge to capture these images as a homage to the past.
As a rite of passage. I captured this series to celebrate my body within the vast nature. The stones I once carried inside my body are now pictured as living systems and as sculptures. The body that I felt weak in one day is now resilient and malleable. Its ability to restore and transform feels like a superpower. Under the full moon, surrounded by the elements, as a sacred ritual.

I discovered later that on that same day, I had conceived my first child.

WHAT
Photo series
Self initiated

WHEN
2022