My Heart is Full

“My Heart Is Full” is a reflection for women who, like me, have spent too much time and energy searching for the joys of romantic love.

In 2019, I turned 50 and after being in heterosexual relationships for most of my adult life, I found myself single for a long period. Embracing photography as a form of expression coincided with reaching maturity. With more physical and mental space available, I was able to experience the pleasure of artistic creation, I discovered other ways of giving and receiving affection, and began to study feminist authors who had drawn on their personal experiences to produce amorous manifestoes for the women of their time.

In my readings, I was particularly inspired by Virginia Woolf – her notion of the uninterrupted space as a basic condition for women to be able to dedicate themselves to writing/art still rings true for me. By occupying an uninterrupted space, I removed myself from the realm of the male gaze, and instead imprinted my own gaze upon myself and my surroundings. Simone de Beauvoir describes that girls are educated to be satisfied with destiny that prevents them from recognising themselves as subjects. For a woman to act as a subject, we need new paradigms that help us create new imaginaries and rethink love as an institution.

This ongoing series is my manifesto. In the first phase, I took a visual dip into my own romantic experiences to reflect on the sweetness and bitterness of love. In the second – more recent – chapter, I focus on my still latent desire and raise some questions: does the fulfillment of this desire come with a price? Will I be able to relate to others and keep my space? Have I gained any wisdom? Why is the aging female body so little portrayed as desiring, living, pulsating?