Macarena Tabia del Solar
by Macarena Tabia del Solar, from Lima Peru
“Her body is starting to change.” My older sister’s best friend looked at me and said those words, I was about 14 or 15 years old and that sentence, which embarrassed me and I pretended not to hear, changed my life. I began to feel self-conscious, hiding myself in baggy jeans. I had constant negative thoughts about my body. Calories were always on my mind, I restricted them and exercise was purely for burning them and not for health or enjoyment. Meanwhile, at home I was dealing with a sister with bulimia. I used to peek through a crack in the bathroom door while she vomited and whenever I told my mom, she would not believe me. At the same time, my best friend had anorexia. It seemed as if I couldn’t escape body obsession and was told by a friend that “I was a magnet for those illnesses.” All of this seeped into my subconscious and when I was older, I began to feel its effects on my life. Relationships were hard, going out to eat with my then boyfriend was pure torture, I could never decide where to go because I was always calculating how many calories and carbs I would eat at a certain place. We almost always ended up fighting and not going anywhere. I felt extremely guilty but I couldn’t help it, and this deteriorated our relationship. I began to start avoiding plans to go out to eat to prevent fights.
These body image issues have been with me forever, almost 23 years. It is just recently, about two years ago, that I began to relax a little and have some control over them instead of them controlling me, even though sometimes they were stronger and won the battle. I never felt that I was thin enough; there was always something to self-criticize. It was, after so many years of knowing only this feeling, my comfort zone. After a couple of years in therapy, I learned that this was about control. There are so many things that are out of my control, but not this one, this one depended just on me and I could control it.
The covid-19 pandemic has isolated us and I do not know why or how, but social distancing and spending so much time by myself have opened up something in me that accepts and likes my body. I look at myself in the mirror and I see those hips that grew when I was 14 or 15 and I like them, I laugh at the tiny rolls of skin that form on my stomach when I sit down, I don’t really mind if my thighs touch a little sometimes. I feel good, I enjoy cooking and eating, I don’t restrict myself anymore and I feel as if I am relearning how to live a life without all these detrimental thoughts in my head. This is why I have decided to explore this new view of my body through self portraits.
SELF-PORTRAITS: PHOTOGRAPHERS IN CONFINEMENT
Curated by Svetlana Bachevanova (USA/France)
A collection of self-portraits made by photojournalists from five continents during the unprecedent lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic.
Photographers are people on the road, living to document the lives of others.
Constrained by the lockdown, many of them had their first experience of being still long enough to begin seeing and understanding small details about who they are, their lifestyles and values, that were overshadowed while they were busy. These self-portraits express their experience.
This is a unique collection of self-portraits from some of the best lenses in photojournalism at an historic moment.
Photographers in Confinement is a project in process and I welcome additional submissions from photojournalists at svetlana@fotoevidence.com
I am looking for potential exhibition partners in the USA and abroad.
Svetlana Bachevanova is a founder and publisher of FotoEvidence, long time photojournalist and curator.
