Bathed in sickly blood, surrounded by organs, ears filled with the excited hums of the flies swarming me. This shoot, despite the history between the photographer and I, still sits in a special place in my heart. A shoot that showed me how choosing to be open and vulnureable with all our ugly parts, is when the most true pieces of works can be created.
This was the first of my boldest works and collaborations that truly captured my true self. I worked with Dylan, and with trust in our creative direction, I dove into the moss covered bog, climbed the trees with my red and shining limbs with just an abandoned chair we had found to lift me up, hold the flesh of the sheeps heart close to my mouth, and I moved to find poses from the feral creature already in me.
The shoot had come from both of our interests in exploring mental health and raw expression through photography, modelling and styling. Initially we had spent a day getting to know about each other's family histories, how our personal work reflected the inner conflict of our mental selves, what it meant to be able to use creativity to break apart from the relentless weight of the trauma we held. In time we found ourselves speaking freely, extremely vulnerably and had come to settle on some vague idea that needed to be expressed through a shoot. What we soon found out, especially in later projects we had worked on togethor, was that we had a knack for shooting ideas on the fly. With Dylan's talent for finding incredible locations and finding the perfect shot, my boldness to climb into the unknown and style myself authentically, and our shared magnetic pull to putting the concept of vulnurability, pain, resilience, FERAL into frame, we found ourselves here. Covered in mud, blood and bugs. Following our intuition as we dove from scene to scene, switching from camera to drone, posing without a moodboard to fall back on, to create this photo series of the feral woman.
I am forever grateful for our experience togethor. It was a big step in trusting people with my self, and getting to know someone's complex life as well. And I truly thank the courage from us both to showcase all our ugly parts. For because we were able to let each other into our worlds, we were able to make something incredibly beautiful from our interpretations of our traumas.
We hope you enjoy this series, as much as we had making it.
Branidii, @softgirlferalartist.
Dylan, @dinkum.archives.
Feral;
Undomesticated, untamed, uncivilised, losing yourself to the wild world, averse to the boundaries of proper rules.
I love this picture. A candid moment within setting up the framing for this shot, and my teeth come baring out from breaking into a smile. I love the way the reeds frame my face, the background, the speckles in my uneven skin, and I LOVE the pure joy in my face.
Truly, in amongst the blood, it is a moment of candidacy that was needed in this shoot to seperate the idea of this series capturing the performance of a fictional swamp creature, to it actually being a raw portrait of a woman in her natural feral state.
Truly, in amongst the blood, it is a moment of candidacy that was needed in this shoot to seperate the idea of this series capturing the performance of a fictional swamp creature, to it actually being a raw portrait of a woman in her natural feral state.
At least, that is how I see it.
I don't remember what I was smiling about, but I was really glad that Dylan captured this shot. The feral woman was never meant to be a mythical concept that came out to play when she is needed on screen. Through this series, I wanted to explore the feral woman that existed naturally in me. Through her unhinged smile, her skin, she exists amongst us. She exists within you. Feral is not a label I want to attach to myself as a character to play. But a trait of myself that is truly and naturally mine.
Trigger warning, the writing ahead mentions self harm, sexual violence and family violence.
My body hasn’t always felt mine.
I often felt like I was standing witness to the vessel that I was meant to inhabit.
Nude photography was one of the pivotal ways to reconnect with myself.
Every movement is mine. Every boldness is a decision made to honour the want to finally be selfish with how I get to use my limbs.
Being too much became a way to find an inner peace inside me.
Self harming became a way for me to cope; numb out the feelings of conflict and overwhelming sense of hopelessness I felt. It allowed for me to physically exude my mental pain, a form of ritual that let me to breathe, so that I could continue being able to bear the burden of my world. In truth, it felt like an addiction. Every week or so when the pent up devastation of holding everything in became too much, I cut. In so many ways, cutting saved my life, though I wont ignore that it made it easier for me to try to kill myself. The times that it did "good", "it's job", was when it helped me see myself in pain. With a lack of understanding of how to reach out to people, cutting was my friend that held me, told me it was going to be okay, that I would figure out the next big family crisis or even the "small crisis" of feeling trapped in my role as everyone's caregiver, and that I could continue living because I had physically gotten the pain out.
But how does that work? How could I live in that delusion?
See, my life felt unreal. It was filled with complicated relationships with men, my mother, my siblings, mixed in with the presence of violence, begging for my mom to leave these men and even after the screams and blood she would still go back, the police raiding our house multiple times and left like a violent shake, the drug business, my mom going to jail before I even fully turned 18, being homeless multiple times with my family, feeling abandoned by the only mother I knew, whilst expected to look after everyone else and thus forced to be hyperindependant, mixed further in with the horror of being sexually abused as a kid by one of those violent men my mother saw, and feeling like amongst all of this, I was there for everyone the best I could but no one had time to help me through it.
So, life felt like a fucking daze. And that wasn't even the extensive list. There was alot of good in my life too. But when I sat by myself in the late nights alone, the weight of these unprocessed life events caught up to me in the worst ways.
Cutting brought me back to a sense of whatever real life was. It gave me a sense of control in that very hectic stage of my life. The rich and stinging pain of the razor blade cuts and seeing myself physically bleed made my internal pain into an external pain I could see, and was the only time my brain could understand I was hurting. Seeing the blood trickle down my arms and bubble at the cuts was the only way I felt real. That my pain was real. It was the only thing. That made me feel here.
Of course, present me has many problems with this relationship. And it breaks my heart reflecting on my early life, and how I felt so alone that I truly felt like this was the only way to make myself feel sane.
The theme of the blood running down my body feels like an ode to that suffering. In this shoot, even unconsciously at the time, I believe I used the theme of blood to play the part of the physical manifestation of the mental traumas I had endured during the large majority of my life. But now, slightly more free and having grown to love myself so much more, I get to wear it with a sense of pride. A sense of, this is the blood of the past that got me here. It is ruthless, gory, fucked up, but I am still here in spite of it all. As confident to be naked in the trees, get to creatively express myself emotionally as a person, be as vulnureable and upfront about my stories as I can. To tell you the truth of who I am. The blood of my past staining my skin, reflective of the fight through flesh and tears, and now I am victorious in winning the battle against it, because I am still here.
The feral woman in me has in many ways been unlocked through that intimate and incredibly raw relationship I have had with myself to survive. I think her growing from the blood is an honour I get to have within myself. She gets more free each passing day of healing, and in moments of peace, I get to honour the fucking hard work that it took to be here.
I remember the violent build up of the buzzing as soon as the sheeps heart came out. Genuinely, it was shocking to go from the small sounds of snapping branches, rustling of the leaves, an occasional comment from us two before we prodominately shot in the quiet.
To ever so slowly.
One fly. Then three. Then six. Till soon I could only lose count but SEE the hoard of flies flocking to us, and a thick sound of buzzing filled the air.
This small part of the experience unlocked a deeper love for nature in me. I was truly fascinated by the experience of being swarmed by these tiny creatures that created such a huge audio impact despite their individual size. Because as a FLOCK? Christ, it was gross in the best way. All their little legs crawling across my body, itching my face, sticking to my hand at an attempt to drink? Eat? The flesh. Their natural instincts to find food was incredible.
I wanted to work more with bugs since. I haven't yet, but I cannot wait for the time to come again to be swamped. Feeling like my animalistic side was becoming one with the gross part of nature was what consolidated my love for looking, feeling and being gross.
The initial story you may see with this series is a feral and bold woman that doesn't fear the idea of being perceived. She is wildly untamed as she plays around in sickly sweet blood. Climbs the trees with her intimate parts bared to the world. Unafraid to be seen as gross, or too much. But there is much that goes into tapping into this seemingly unfearful state of being. The hardships that have made someone's skin thicker, the trauma of relentlessly getting up after being curb stomped time and time again. The Feral Woman is a celebration of coming into herself and free, even with the blood of the past pouring down her. The internal and external pain of her life story becoming a part of the reason of how she is able to be, wildly feral.