Federica Belli

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Class 1998, Federica lives in Milan. Proclaimed youngest winner of Master of photography (the European contest hosted by Sky Arts) in 2018, she then proceeded to work alongside Oliviero Toscani at FABRICA, Benetton research center. Last summer she moved to New York to work as assistant of the portrait photographer Chris Buck. While there, she started a weekly column about theory of photography for Musée Magazine, an ongoing collaboration. Back to Italy, she has held a TEDx Talk about the social power of photography in our time and concluded her degree in Economics at Bocconi University. She is now approaching photography full time both through commercial commissions and personal projects.

No matter how often we are taught the potential of our female body, every woman has a specific moment in which she first grasps the wonders her body is really capable of. Taken after a misadventure concerning my sexuality, this photograph represents that enlightenment: for the first time, I took hold of the future potential motherhoods, the pregnancies, the menstrual bleedings and the breastfeeding. For the first time, I thanked my body for her strength with honesty and emotion.
Slowly but inexorably, we are getting to realise how deeply ingrained some mechanisms are in our society: diet culture and unrealistic models to look up to have silently held prisoners millions of women. As young women, however, we are finally perceiving a gradual shift towards at the normalisation of women that cultivate awareness and critical thinking. This photograph, comparing our brain to a hydrangea leaf, is an open invitation to embrace our role as active players of our ecosystem rather than passively.
Italy
Rome
Malta
St Pauls Bay
Italy
Milan
USA
Portland
USA
Las Vegas

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