We went to the forest
We went to the forest
For one afternoon we were witches of a revolution. We got bored of the city and all its prejudices, and as an act of rebellion we went to the forest to play. When we took everything off, and I don’t just mean our clothes, we were all able to find each other. We became accomplices and, like good witches, we turned anyone who looked at us wrong into a toad. We were powerful, daring and mischievous.
We talked with the trees and laughed with the river. No tree was the same as another and no stone was identical to another, and they were all equally beautiful; that’s how we felt. None of us the same as the other, and yet all of us beautiful. Mothers, daughters, sisters, girlfriends… The labels fell away and we were just women breaking barriers. The noblest act of protest, against other people’s hang-ups and our own.
Rafaela
Daring once again, many would say…. fun, I say. I have joy for the rest of my days with the beautiful memory of how what you’re looking at came to be, how we achieved so much harmony and complicity in a few hours without knowing each other. We gave ourselves to each other, to Pralad…. to life itself.
Ana
Before I came to Pralad I went through very dark times, bad decisions, a heartbreaking and toxic love that brought betrayals and ended in an abortion. Then the process of rebuilding and healing began, and two years of intense emotions went by, 2018 being my year of total love. I found Pralad through @Lovelust, with that photo of some women posing in front of the Stock Exchange, and it was the coolest damn thing I had ever seen. I said “I need photos with him, I have to do photos with him.” The chance came up to do group photos and I didn’t think twice. Being there with him and 6 other women was the most magical experience of my life, crowning the acceptance of my body, accepting the women around me and looking after each other as if we’d been friends all our lives.
I thought I’d feel ashamed, that I’d feel uncomfortable, and running around butt naked was the most incredible thing. I’d happily do it again and again, and I’d do it with the same group of witches.
That’s what Pralad is: love, sisterhood, acceptance and liberation.
Germeine
My relationship with my body has been changing for as long as I can remember. Since I was a girl I’ve had to come to understand that the feminine stereotypes that existed, and still exist, aren’t the only ways of being and existing in this world and this society. In the same way, I’ve had to accept and love my body, my protruding ribs, my late physical development, my thinness, which wasn’t a thinness accepted by my peers but instead triggered teasing that was also tied to twisting my name.
When I managed to get past that phase, working on my mind and my body, when I learned to feel good about myself, to love myself and to forgive my past self for having been so hard on myself, I realized how much love I had to give myself. So I began to look at myself, carefully, to get to know myself, and by extension to get to know other women… and I found us beautiful.
In that phase of my life Pralad’s Instagram account came to me. A friend showed it to me and I immediately fell in love with his photos, with his gaze on the female body, with his way of presenting all of us. I loved the way all the nudes he photographed showed more than just the bodies of the women who accepted the challenge and agreed to be photographed by him.
When I couldn’t take any more love for these photos, I decreed that if there was ever an open call and I had the time to go, I’d go no matter what. And that day came, almost a year later. Suddenly I found myself moving my commitments around and saving that day for this. I was very excited about taking part in group photos with other women. I believe that the experience of joining, creating or visiting a women’s space, where the male presence is almost tangential to what is born there, is almost a must for those of us who want to see the world from outside patriarchal parameters, and without a doubt a starting point for experiencing sisterhood.
The experience was more than I could have imagined. I think that when you get naked you don’t just take off your clothes (anyone can take off their clothes; in a way we all do it every day), but facing the world and yourself and putting on everything you are, taking charge of your being, is the greatest challenge… more than getting naked, you knot yourself up and in the process you untie yourself, you unravel and you find yourself. And meeting those seven women (myself included) couldn’t have been more magical, healing and revolutionary.
Rayen
In the photographs
@carollamisma
@china.inu
@monique_moron
@___blackwidow
@ensilenciop
@rafikikifar
@psychekooo