Sara, before photography there was dance, a direct, physical, almost instinctive relationship with the body. How did the camera become a new way for you to engage with it?

After dancing, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I never really have a plan B. I only knew I wanted to create something meaningful with my life. I ended up studying the more commercial side of media. I don't use much of my bachelor degree today, but it did introduce me to photography. When I reached a point where I no longer wanted to spend my energy building other people's projects, brands and dreams, the only thing I really had was a camera my grandfather had given me. So I decided to give it a shot! The moment that defined my relationship with photography came when I committed to shooting and editing every day for a month. Two weeks in, I was completely exhausted. I had run out of ideas, inspiration and motivation. I couldn't think myself into creativity anymore. And that's exactly where something shifted. In that state of exhaustion, where I could no longer rely on intellect or planning, I made an image that became the foundation of the visual language I still use today. Looking back, I think photography became much more than a creative practice. For years I had disconnected from my body in order not to feel the pain and trauma it carried. Through my work, abstracting the human form, I was forced to look at the body differently. Not as something to escape from, but as something to explore.

In your work, the color black, in strong contrast with white, is a constant presence that isolates, conceals and sculpts parts of the body, completely transforming their perception. What role do these two elements play in the construction of form?

We are born from a void, and eventually we return to one. The color black fascinates me because it holds both everything and nothing at all. It is dense and empty at the same time. It can conceal, but it can also reveal. Black creates a kind of visual silence. It removes context and allows the body to detach from its usual associations. Without that context, the body becomes less fixed, less certain, more open to interpretation. Removing color has a similar effect. It strips the image down to its essence. What remains is form, light, shadow, tension and presence. I use darkness almost like a sculptural material. By allowing parts of the body to disappear, other parts can emerge. It is often in what is hidden that something new becomes visible.

You define your practice as an abstract exploration of what it means to be human, rooted in lived embodiment. What does it mean, for you, to work with the physicality of a body in real time on set and to explore its possibilities?

The purpose of my work is exploration. The photograph is simply the result of that exploration. For me, the body is a living archive. It carries memory, emotion, desire, tension, vulnerability and history. Every body enters the studio with a different story, and that story influences the forms we create together. The images are made in real time, with no digital manipulation creating these shapes. This is so important because that’s the only way my models can truly see and feel themselves transform. Constrained by the boundaries of the human body, it demands true creativity. I am constantly exploring how far the body can shift away from its familiar image while still remaining deeply human. Sometimes a body becomes almost unrecognizable, yet somehow more emotionally present.

You write that most people spend their entire lives looking at their bodies, yet very few have ever truly seen them. Through your work and Alternative Art Therapy, what have you understood about the difference between looking at a body and truly seeing it?

Alternative Art Therapy emerged at the intersection of my work as a fine art photographer and my work as an intimacy and relationship coach. Over the many years of working with the naked body, I noticed something: most people spend their entire lives looking at their bodies, yet very few have ever truly seen them. And that ripples down into our intimate lives…We inherit ways of seeing ourselves long before we choose them. Beauty standards, criticism, shame, comparison, expectation. Over time, we stop experiencing the body and start evaluating it. My work is an attempt to interrupt that process. The sessions begin with conversation, drawing from the same curiosity that informs my coaching work. Together, we explore someone’s relationship with themselves, their body, their story, and the beliefs that shape how they are seen, and how they see themselves. From there, the exploration becomes visual. Using the body, light and physical abstraction, we step outside familiar perceptions and discover new ways of seeing. The photographs are not the goal. They are the beautiful evidence of the journey. What interests me most is the moment recognition breaks down. When someone can no longer immediately identify their body as the thing they have spent years judging, something unexpected happens. Curiosity enters where criticism once lived. This is often where they stop asking,“Am I beautiful?” and begin asking, “What am I really looking at?” That shift changes everything!

You describe yourself as more of a sculptor than a photographer. When you work, do you already have the final form in mind, or is it something that emerges through the process?

It is always a dialogue between intention and discovery. I have a vault full of shapes and forms living in my imagination. But I don’t prepare specific images before a shoot. Every body has a unique form and carries a different story with them. My greatest source of inspiration is always the person I’m creating with. I learned a long time ago that things rarely go according to plan. So I decided to embrace that reality and let process and presence shape the image.

Your work seems to strip the body of its usual meanings, allowing it to exist beyond judgement. What emerges, in your view, when these layers are removed?

I think what emerges is something both deeply personal and deeply universal. So much of the way we look at bodies is shaped by categorization. Gender, age, beauty, sexuality, perfection, imperfection. I am interested in interrupting that automated process. When those familiar markers begin to dissolve, the body can become something more elemental. Less defined by social expectations and closer to the experience of simply being human. People often describe my work as sensual. While that is certainly present, I think what they are often responding to is intimacy, body and human exploration without its usual filters. There is a freedom in ambiguity. The body no longer needs to perform a recognizable identity. It can simply exist.

What do you hope reaches the viewer when they encounter your images?

To be honest, I care even more about what reaches the people I create the images with. Many of the works you see were created during Alternative Art Therapy sessions. The image is not the goal. The experience is. Again and again I witness people seeing themselves differently through this process. More beautiful. More powerful. More human. More worthy of being seen. That matters deeply to me. For the viewer, I hope the work offers a similar invitation. I genuinely believe we would be more loving towards ourselves and towards one another if we could experience the human body as a living work of art. Not because it is perfect, but because it is alive. Because it carries history. Because it changes. Because it moves. Because it makes us feel something.

Today, artificial intelligence can generate endlessly variable, “perfect” bodies,  without history, without pain. Your work, instead, always begins with a real body and a long, intimate conversation. Do you think this difference, this lived experience, is still perceptible in an image, or are we losing the ability to see it?

I think people still feel the difference, even when they cannot fully explain it. Everything you see in my work is created in real time in the studio. The transformations happen through light, shadow and interaction with a real body. A real body carries resistance. It carries breath, tension, fatigue, memory, desire, insecurity, emotion. Those things create subtle complexities that are difficult to replicate artificially because they are not only visual, they are relational and lived. The conversations before the shoot matter just as much as the images themselves. Intimacy changes form. When someone feels seen rather than observed, something shifts in how they inhabit their body. AI can generate endless surfaces. But I am interested in the complexity and depth of presence. Presence comes from lived experience. From human contact. From vulnerability. From embodiment. I do think we risk becoming desensitized to the difference. But I also think people are increasingly hungry for what feels real. In a world where almost anything can be generated, genuine human presence becomes even more valuable.

What comes next for you ?

I feel like I am only beginning to understand the possibilities of the visual language I have developed. What excites me most is not moving away from fine art, but discovering where else this language can live. I am increasingly interested in collaborations that allow the work to enter new worlds, like fashion, publishing, design and other disciplines, while remaining rooted in the same artistic voice. For me, the question is never the medium. The body remains my material. Transformation remains my fascination. I simply feel there are still many unexplored ways for that conversation to unfold.