We created PhotoVogue Festival Echoes to allow those who participated in the event to contribute their voices to the Festival s narrative. During those days in Milan, we recognised our community s desire to come together and draw inspiration from each other s works. We highly value the sharing of experiences and practices, firmly believing that providing dedicated space to each artist can appropriately acknowledge the outstanding projects exhibited in November at the PhotoVogue Festival.
The 6th episode of PhotoVogue Festival Echoes is dedicated to Arancha Brandon, who presented his work ‘A clean air rectangle’, as part of the exhibition “Spanish Women: A contemporary Portrait of Strength and Beauty”, with the results of the Local open call made in collaboration with Vogue Spain and PHotoESPAÑA.
Arancha Brandon captured the complex tapestry of the female experience within society, in relation to the body and the interdependence of individual space and the public sphere. In this project, the artist drew a bond with the subjects she portrayed, showing the deep, unspoken relationships that women can create between themselves: every picture contains a piece of the artist, a reflection she mirrored in the women she photographed.
1. What is your favorite memory of the PhotoVogue Festival 2023?
It was the day Ayomide Tejuoso called me for the yearbook photo with the rest of the artists at BASE. She shared her energy with us and I even threw flowers into the air. It was significant in making me feel like a part of the Festival beyond the exhibition. Being in Milan and connecting with other artists away from the screens was a gift.
Later, I could sit on the bench in front of my photographs and see how people from different parts
of the world reacted to my photos. I understood something that Sharon Lockhart says: the work is
not complete until you can see the audience
s reaction.
2. "A Clean Air Rectangle" is a project that deals with the interrelation between you,
the photographer behind the camera, and the subjects you portray. How do you usually
create a connection with the people you choose to photograph?
I don
t have a specific methodology. Sometimes, the connection may have originated years ago, as
was the case with Acacia Ojea, starting during adolescence in my hometown. With Alicia Rodríguez and Bendi González was completely different: I met them at specific moments in my life when I was dealing with different episodes of body dysmorphia.
3. The flowers freezed in the iced water, a symbol of the profound impact of
individual spaces on our experiences”, as you said, made me think of Astrida Neimanis’s
hydrofeminism: we are watery creatures, difficult but also dangerous to constraint, and
connected with each other through a fluid conception of space, boundaries and
relationalities. What do you want to show about contemporary women? What do you look
for when you portray the feminine?
I seek refuge in what I identify with. In my quest for my own femininity, I always maintain a connection with water because I cannot conceive my life any other way. I was born 1 km from the Atlantic Ocean and 10 meters above sea level; it
s something inherent to me. I
ve shaped my understanding of the world by living in the same landscape that inspires me today; not everyone is fortunate enough to have that.
In my hometown, women swim in the ocean in any season and have their own self-care codes related to it. I grew up surrounded by stories of strong women talking about their connection with water. For them, the greatest health indicator is still the nine baths in September at Area Grande beach in A Guarda.
When I moved to Madrid, it was the first time in my life that I lived so far from water. It was there that I started freezing flowers. This initial experiment gave me peace and has allowed me to continue investigating. The water connects me on a sensory level that I find hard to define, like the femininity, a continuous change and transformation.
4. Is there an upcoming project you are working on?
One of the most important projects is a short film that I am developing with the sound artist Acacia Ojea, in conversation about water, femininity, and the border between Galicia and Portugal, where we both grew up.
Right now, Galicia is experiencing an environmental crisis due to a spill of pellets on the coasts,
and no institution is taking responsibility. We have been working on this project for two years, and it will be released this year.
