“Women Circle” is an empowering project by Berlin-based artist Aviya Wyse @avi_wy_ in collaboration with lingerie designer Coline Dubois – Gryspeert @figure.s_ bringing together groups of diverse women in nature, sharing their stories.
For over 10 years now I have been constructing an archive, absent of order or hierarchy. I collect living people, beginning with my private biography, marked by the death of my mother. I began by photographing the women closest to me and then I appealed to women I did not know. I searched for women everywhere.
A while ago I had an urge, to start bringing all these unique souls i would usually photograph alone & then later on unite them as a mass instillation protecting and empowering each other, which has evolved into bringing the collective together in to the shoot itself, empowered by each others presence, voices and our strength as a group.
I have turned to nature, it has become my studio. I have always been quite uncomfortable with nature, with its power and endless beauty. It has been a challenge to allow all this beauty in. I never dared to photograph nature until not long ago. it was too beautiful for me, too “alive”. This was a way of letting go of my strict approach. My work is also changing very much into colour, in a way almost back into the celebration of life. As I myself am growing away from my own grief, my works as well are evolving. now staged in the most natural scenery for a body to be in actually. It is like working on a permanent wild set in which the models and I need to adjust and work in.
Coline and I met this year, both very admiring of each other’s work. We wanted to collaborate. I love her approach to the Body and the way she dresses it with her tailored hand made pieces. Every garment is unique and attentive to the body that is going to wear it, also extremely beautiful. She doesn’t follow the usual & binary size chart, the one that dictates how the body should be, she has created her own system that allows any body to exist and express itself.
we decided not to make a “usual” fashion shoot but to bring the spirit of her garments into the shoot. so this is the second episode of a hopefully long term collaboration that has just began. where we would love to explore more & more nature, garments, women dynamics and later on men too.
This shoot took place at Spandauer forest. Not knowing each other, we all met at the train station, walked together through the woods.. we ate together sat together then we started this shoot with a circle holding hands and walking around silently together for a while.
