Culture

Carlota Guerrero’s sensual celebration of female bodies

The photographer Carlota Guererro, best known for her collaboration with Solange and Arca, has now released a photo book dedicated to women.

Just before the pandemic, Guererro, in collaboration with the Spanish fashion brand Desigual, had staged a performance named El Beso which means The Kiss. It featured 30 dancers, which through their dance, embraced and kissed each other, gradually removing their clothes, and they united creating a mass of naked bodies. The reminds us how normal things were before the pandemic.

In the middle of the pandemic Guererro has released a new photo book named “Tengo un dragón dentro del corazón” and it is an invitation to celebrate intimacy. The photo book consists of 260 images, which represent the naked magnificence of nature, beauty, and spirituality. Some of those pictures are even taken from her personal artistic projects and the editorial fashion shoots and portraits of Solange and Arca. As a whole, it is an ode to female bodies and bonds.

Guererro says that her work is food for thought challenging the way men gaze upon the female body. Through her photos, she wants to deliver the message that the female body belongs to a person, a woman, and it is the one who creates the image. As she explains and we quote “The important thing is that the woman herself decides. It’s not about what the image is like, but who takes the decision to represent the woman in this way.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHh5EmZDi9t/

 

In the photos one notices the power that vibes through them, creating a feeling of genuine bonding and female beauty found in diversity and body positivity. There are women in pyramid shapes or hugging each other or braiding each other’s hair creating a sense of love and support.

She speaks on her work saying that she finds it very therapeutic and that the devotion to the female body is almost mystical and pagan, finding its roots in ancient goddess religions. Concluding she says “They are rituals of acceptance. I believe in the powers of ritual and magic.”

 

Words by: Vasiliki Roussou