Amaso y’ inyana “ The eyes of a calf”

In my culture, the cow is sacred, a symbol of life, abundance, and connection to land and spirit. As a child, looking into a cow’s eyes was my first encounter with true freedom: something patient, tender, and infinite. Amaso y’Inyana was born from this memory, expanding it into a study of how sacredness and dignity live within bodies too often unseen or misunderstood.

The series centers queer bodies, Black bodies, and bodies that break gender expectations, holding themselves with the same quiet reverence I once found in the cow’s gaze. It explores visibility, presence, and the right to exist fully without judgment, reduction, or demand for justification or explanation. It asks what it means to be truly seen.

Through these portraits, I sought to create slow, deliberate encounters between the subject and viewer that feel like silent conversations. Each image honors both softness and strength, refusing the binaries and performances often imposed on marginalized bodies.

Amaso y’Inyana challenges the notion that marginalized bodies must be explained, justified, or translated to be accepted. It asserts that being without narrative, without defense, in full natural presence is enough and that existence itself carries a sacred weight, revealed only when we learn to see without assumption.

The portraits were created using a medium format film camera, a choice that slowed down every part of the process: listening, witnessing, and making. Amaso y’Inyana reaffirmed my commitment to slow, intuitive storytelling rooted in presence, trust, and care. It reminded me that the most powerful images are not created through staging but by patiently witnessing what is already there.