Frida - A Singular Vision of Beauty & Pain
© Julia Fullerton-BattenSince she died in 1954, Frida Kahlo has become an iconic figure in the art world and beyond. It’s hard to sum up her impact because it spans art, culture, politics, and social issues. Her unique vision and fearless self-expression have made her a ‘Goddess’ figure whose legacy continues to grow, inspiring new generations of artists, activists, and admirers around the world.
Her work is a vivid and complex tapestry that weaves together personal suffering, cultural identity, and political beliefs, but it’s her relationship with Mexico that amazes me most. Her deep love for her country is central to her art, with its heritage manifesting in the themes, symbols, and styles she used.
Through her paintings, Kahlo offers us a unique perspective on Mexican culture, identity, and the human condition, leaving an indelible mark on both national and global art history. Even today, 70 years after her death, her work still feels very contemporary.
When I look at her paintings, I feel inspired to be brave.
When I look at her paintings, I feel her love for Mexico.
Frida Kahlo is an inspiration to so many people. Still, I think female artists have a special bond with her power and integrity, her ability to openly reflect on the most vulnerable parts of her existence, whilst maintaining her inner strength and dignity.
I came to Mexico in 2022 for my retrospective exhibition and fell in love with everything Mexican. The colours, the people and the rhythm of life…..so different to London. I was so amazed by everything I encountered that I knew I had to return to shoot an in-depth personal project.
Being inspired by the latest Mexican DIOR Collection 2024 and working closely with a film costume designer in Mexico City, it was essential to source authentic, handcrafted Tehuana dresses from Oaxaca, the traditional outfit Frida wore to reflect her love of national and cultural identity; her eye-catching Tehuanas capture the vibrancy and strength that are unequivocally Frida.
With the help of local people in Mexico, I was given access to hidden and secret locations, such as an abandoned mansion right in the heart of Mexico City, a private residence designed by the internationally renowned architect Luis Barragan, ancient haciendas steeped in history and the creepy doll island on Xochimilco, famous for its floating gardens and full of mysticism.
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More Than Half
© Thandiwe Muriu“Milk and honey have different colours, but they share the same house peacefully.”
-African Proverb
Thandiwe Muriu immersed herself in the tradition of Japanese textile craftsmanship. Historically, textiles have been a meeting point for many cultures, with the influence of trade, global events, and the intermingling of traditions woven into their fibres.
Indeed, Muriu’s native Kenya and Japan have a linked history through textiles, too. The East African kanga was printed by Japanese manufacturers as early as the 1930s, and the tie-dye technique finds parallels in the Japanese shibori. Muriu’s journey through Kyoto’s fabric landscape ultimately inspired a new chapter of her Camo series, More Than Half, which intertwines the bold languages of both the kimono and wax textile. Uniting two visual vocabularies, she reflects on the expansive theme of belonging and one's place in a community. In the exhibition 一如 (Ichinyo), Muriu shifts her focus from camouflage to coexistence, anchoring her subjects in the renowned symbol of Japanese culture, the kimono, while setting them against a widely accepted backdrop of ‘Africanness’, the wax textile. By doing so, she aims to recognise the experience of Afro-Asian (Blasian) women, whose identities naturally bridge two cultures. Muriu’s portraits assert that both origins form a singular, unified presence, and channel the spirit of 一如 (Ichinyo) – a Buddhist term meaning “all things are fundamentally one” and expressing that what may appear divided is, at its core, already whole.
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More Than Half, was created as part of KYOTOGRAPHIE African Artists Residency.
Hospital
© Alastair Philip WiperEvery day, in hospitals like this one, people arrive for work and hold a stranger's life in their hands. Literally.
They do it the way others might prepare for a performance — focused, unhurried, running through the same rituals before crossing into a space where the margin for error is invisible. Flesh and metal. Precision and mortality. The most extraordinary things, made ordinary by repetition.
We think we know what a hospital looks like. We've seen the corridors, the scrubs, the machines. But something is happening here that familiarity has made invisible — the fact that this is, if you stop and look at it, completely insane that this is possible at all.
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Dying to get in here
© Alastair Philip WiperOf all the things that happen every day, this is one of the most invisible. Not because it's rare — a funeral home like this one processes bodies the way other businesses process paperwork, steadily, reliably, without fuss. Not because it's secret.
This is a series made inside an ordinary American funeral home — the embalming room, the crematory, the front office where families are received. People arrive. People leave. Arms and legs are massaged, faces are set, and blood is replaced with fluid. Somewhere near you, right now. The people who do this work clock in like anyone else, argue about whether to wear suits, and take calls at 2 am. They have chosen to stand on the side of the curtain that the rest of us spend our whole lives avoiding.
“If there will be a viewing or visitation of the deceased, the body will usually be embalmed. If a person dies a natural death, the embalming process takes around an hour. But if they have been involved in a car crash or a shooting, for instance, they go to the county morgue and then have an autopsy. When they arrive at the funeral home, they can be in a bad state - there can be a lot of repair work to do.”
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Where the Amish Vacation
© Dina LitovskyEvery winter, Amish and Mennonite travelers from all over the United States, travel to Pinecraft, a small community in Sarasota, Florida. Starting out as a tourist camp in the 1920s, it has since become a popular vacation spot. Jokingly dubbed “Amish Las Vegas”, Pinecraft is a unique place where all different denominations of Anabaptist escape the winter together and mingle amongst each other. The usual rules are a bit looser, turning a blind eye to the use of cell phones, cameras and bicycles while encouraging recreational activities.
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