I look in the mirror. I see myself.
Who am I? I am my legs. I am my arms. My adult skin. My thighs. I am my body.
Sometimes I hear my body being praised. Sometimes I like myself. Sometimes I adorn myself. Sometimes I love myself. I am my beautiful body.
Sometimes I hear my body being criticized. And then I don’t like myself. And then I get angry at my body.
Sometimes I don’t recognize myself. Sometimes I don’t want to see myself. Sometimes I hate myself. I am not my ugly body.
I take a step to the side. I no longer see myself. But I am still here.
Who am I? I am my heart – alive, warm. I am my lungs, giving me air. My arms, embracing my children. My eyes, allowing me to see the world. I am my healthy body.
Sometimes I don’t think about my body. I forget it. I run. I work a lot. I sleep little. I cry. I laugh. I love. I am filled with life. I am not my body.
Sometimes I am angry with it. Sometimes I am worried about it. Sometimes I don’t want it. I am not my sick body.
But I have nowhere else to go. I begin to take care of myself. I give myself rest. I heal myself. I start to feel better. I breathe again, sleep again, embrace my children again. I thank my body.
So who am I? A mind? A soul? A character? A mother? My achievements? My friends? Am I what I do and can do? Am I those who love me? Am I those whom I love? Or am I my body?
Am I what does not meet the standards? Am I what can fail and break at any moment? Am I what others desire? Am I the one who makes some people turn away in disgust? Am I what others admire?
Am I all of this at once?
The project I Am Not Any Body is about getting to know oneself through one’s own body. About observation, contemplation, about how relationships are built step by step. How what was carefully hidden in folds, pores, and wrinkles begins to reveal itself.
It’s about what we rarely speak of, about what we sometimes avert our eyes from, even when alone with ourselves. A silent dialogue. A lifelong relationship. A closed system. It is about the fact that I am my body. And the fact that I am not my body.
In our society, there is a cult of the body. The body is everything—we put it at the center of attention, we often worship it, yet paradoxically, we forget about it when it tries to communicate with us, ignore it, criticize it.
As a photographer, this theme deeply concerns me as through the human body, I try to reveal much more—to expose hidden meanings, the truths of each person in front of my lens. But then I encounter a certain rejection—people not accepting themselves in photographs. As if photography touches something raw, revealing something which was desperately concealed.
I am convinced that through our bodies, we express everything we experience on other levels—intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
Photography has the power to uncover the most hidden corners of our subconscious through a spontaneous, fluid process. During a photoshoot, I always rely on intuition, creating a space where things can flow naturally—like a river merging from two streams: the photographer and the model. Everything that happens afterward (comfort, discomfort, acceptance, resistance…) is all part of the process and is reflected in the result.
The project I Am Not Any Body is an exploration of our relationship with ourselves through the body. I photographed people who were curious to have an open conversation about themselves, their experiences with their bodies, and their relationship with life through physical experience—to understand who we truly are.
Am I my body? Or am I not my body?
ABOUT ME
Hi, my name is Genia, I´m a visual artist and therapeutic photographer.
Over the last 10 years I have been developing a unique way of using self-portraiture as a therapeutic tool, using my own body to investigate an emotional response. I´m committed to guiding people onto a path of self-discovery to allow them to reframe feelings around identity and the way we view our bodies.
I have a degree in photography from the Institut Fotogràfic de Catalunya, and a post graduate degree in documentary and artistic photography from the Fotografika Academy, Saint Petersburg (Russia). My photos have been exhibited internationally and featured in magazine publications.
