On the process of un-fearing was featured in FITA Magazine Vol. V – Floating Waters, Chapter 5. This volume was dedicated to Water and the Japanese City of Osaka. I was invited by the Editorial Team to write on my work Seda Sobre Papel (2017).

This cyanotype series features part of the coral collection of the Natural History Museum in Lisbon. At the time, I was obsessing over coral bleaching. On the last day of the shoot, it hit me: I was photographing the corpses of corals, not the living specimens. That froze me and it took me a moment to come back to these photographs and re-think the whole process, after learning about cyanotype, a photographic technique from the 19th century. As I reflected back on the series, I understood how it was also entrenched to my fears of water and my willingness to confront them.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fearful of water. Not showers or baths (thankfully), but of what I call big water masses – from bigger pools to lakes, to the sea, and, ultimately, the ocean. I’ve had multiple water frights as a child and they stuck with me.

My mom, though, believes that I’ve died by drowning in a past life. I’m not too sure of it, but maybe mothers do know how their children have died in their past lives, since they’re the ones bringing them to life in this present one.

As a kid, my fears were so irrational that I was sure the darker tiles on the pool where I had swimming lessons would turn into a hammer shark and bite me, despite all evidence against it every Saturday morning.

Read in full in its printed version.