A New Beginning
Atta Collective
OCTOBER 01, 2026
There is a story behind this photograph that I have never fully told. When I was a child, my teachers would often call my parents because, instead of paying attention in class, I was usually drawing or painting. I remember once painting a house on fire and winning a prize for it. Art was something that came naturally to me, long before I understood what it meant. As a teenager, I accompanied my father to the Universidad Central de Venezuela. I remember walking through the School of Arts and being completely fascinated by what I saw. But my father told me something that stayed with me: if I wanted to make a living from art, I had to be excellent at it. At the time, with all my insecurities and without the confidence or experience to believe in myself, I stepped away from it. Years passed, and I became disconnected from that part of myself. Then my life changed. After going through cancer, a hysterectomy, and serious complications from the surgery, I spent about a month in the hospital and underwent four surgeries. I was physically weak and emotionally overwhelmed. Yet, strangely, I wasn’t crying. I felt almost suspended in shock. My only connection to something beyond the hospital room was the view from the window: a garden, birds, trees, and the colors of Hacienda La Floresta. I would look outside and feel transported somewhere else. Those colors gave me a sense of life when I felt completely disconnected from it. I remember thinking about What Dreams May Come, with its luminous, almost impossible colors representing paradise, and contrasting that with the darkness and silence of Dante’s Inferno. I began to understand how profoundly images and color could affect the way we experience life. During my recovery, with very little strength left, I asked my brother to buy me a camera. When I finally returned home, my sister helped reconnect me with art through crafts and making things with my hands. Then came the moment when I saw myself in the mirror again. My body was thinner. It carried visible reminders of everything I had gone through. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was confronted not only with the changes in my body, but also with the expectations I had grown up with about what a woman’s life was supposed to look like: becoming a mother, having a family, and following a certain path. But my own journey through this life was unfolding differently. I was beginning to understand that being a woman could not be defined only by those expectations, or by what my body could or could not do. There was another part of me that was still there, waiting to be seen. So I picked up my camera. I made this self portrait nude. It wasn’t about showing my body. It was about seeing it again and reclaiming it. For me, that photograph became a reminder that I had survived. But more than survival, it became a reminder that my femininity, my passion, my strength, and my desire to keep going were still there. Beneath everything that had changed, I was still there. Since then, I have continued photographing, with periods of confidence and periods of doubt. I am still learning, still questioning myself, and still finding my way back to the part of me that once spent her childhood drawing instead of paying attention in class. This new beginning is not about becoming the person I was before. It is about meeting that person again and allowing her to continue. This photograph is where I began again