// as our bodies lift up slowly //

“This project is titled “as our bodies lift up slowly”, and I often say that making this work is about facing myself. As a person who has tended to compartmentalize difficult emotions for most of my life, I’m looking inward at the parts of myself that I previously found to be unsavory and tried to ignore. I carried negative thoughts that hindered my self-growth. There isn’t a lot of space for dreaming in an oppressive world, so I use photography as a tool to create a space where I freely navigate the various facets of my life experience and identity. I hope to weave the viewer in and out of my memories and thought processes through the use of archival family photographs, digital/physical photographic manipulation, text, and switching between black and white and color as a way to mimic the ebb and flow of memories and time. These images, some of which take place in nature and within interior spaces encompass themes of family and lineage, cultural and religious upbringing, the purging of fear and shame, self-acceptance, and embracing spirituality as a way to heal.”

Vanessa Leroy (b. 1996) is a photographer from Waltham, Massachusetts. She is currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She remains on the hunt for new ways of seeing, remembering, and altering the world through photography. She is drawn to image-making because of the power it holds to create nuanced representation for marginalized people and uplift their stories. She sees photography as a tool for social justice, and with it, she hopes to create worlds that people feel as though they can enter and draw from, as well as provide a look into an experience that they may not personally recognize.

You can find more of Vanessa’s work on her site: vanessaleroy.com

& Follow along on instagram: @VanessaLeroyPhoto