6 minute read
Mother of invention
When shooting an inspiring group of women skaters in Bolivia, there was only one person who Peruvian photographer CELIA D LUNA wanted by her side: the woman who taught her the importance of female defiance and creativity
Words LOU BOYD Photography CELIA D LUNA
Giant leap: skater Teffy Morales opens her arms wide and lands an ollie on her first attempt.
Band of sisters (opposite): “I didn’t know it then, but I was about to capture one of the most important photos of my career,” says Luna. “At that moment it was special, because I could see unity and power.”
Born to a single mother in a small town in Ayacucho, rural Peru, photographer Celia D Luna’s childhood was filled with Andean folklore and traditions. Luna’s mother, Celia Victoria Morales, taught her young daughter about the vibrancy and strength of their home country, and Luna grew up inspired by bold colours and bold women. Decades later, living in Miami and now the single parent of a daughter of her own, Luna decided to combine those inspirations and shoot striking photography of striking women. “I want to photograph women who are dreamers,” she says. “Fighters like my mother, and colourful like my country.”
Skirtpark: “The skaters told me that seeing underskirts in Bolivia is like seeing underwear,” says Luna. “It’s something that past generations didn’t usually show. Here’s Elinor [Buitrago] in action.”
One day in 2020 – in Miami, her home since 1996 – Luna came across photos on Instagram of a group of young women in Cochabamba, Bolivia, dressed in colourful fabrics and full lace underskirts she recognised from her own youth. They wore the traditional dress of indigenous Andean women: bowler hats, pollera skirts (voluminous skirts made of cotton or wool) and Aguayo wrap shawls (made from a colourful, hand-woven material), with long braids down their backs. And these women were skateboarders. The photos showed them rolling around town, kickfipping over pavements and doing board grabs on halfpipes, flashing the underskirts of their polleras as they performed their tricks.
Luna knew she had to find these women and shoot them herself. “I just gravitated towards them,” she says. “I could see something of myself in them, and I was so intrigued about why they were wearing their traditional clothing while doing sport. I wanted to go and meet them immediately.”
With the assistance of local guides and business owners in Cochabamba, Luna was able to track down one of the skaters in the pictures and introduced herself to their group. They all agreed to meet up for a photoshoot.
Dream team: “When we skate as a group, we feel a kinship and motivation to keep going until we achieve our goal,” says ImillaSkate member Belen Fajardo. “We’ve received messages of thanks and support from girls and young women who have seen us in the media and now want to learn to skate.”
Bolivian skater group ImillaSkate – imilla translates from the Native American languages Aymara and Quechua as ‘young girl’ – was formed in 2019 by then 23-year-old Cochabamba local Dani Santiváñez and two friends. All avid skaters, the group ride their boards wearing the dress associated with the women of the Highland regions of central South America. Their aesthetic is a symbol of resistance against the pejorative use of the term cholita – a name given to young indigenous Andean women – and any clothing associated with it.
Top deck: “Deysi Tacuri Lopez is the daredevil of the group,” says Luna. “The girls look up to her.”
“When I grew up in the Andes, if you called somebody cholita, or chola, you were kind of insulting them,” says Luna, 41. “It was a derogatory term making fun of you for not speaking Spanish properly, or not seeming educated, or wearing indigenous clothing or something. But I see how Bolivian girls, especially these skaters, totally give a different meaning to cholita. They use the word with so much pride and joy, and they want to manifest that pride by wearing the same traditional clothing their mums or grandmas wore back in the day. They’re recontextualising and reclaiming cholita while doing this sport that pushes them into the future.”
As she prepared to fly to Bolivia for the shoot, Luna had only one person in mind as a companion. So she called her mother. “I knew she’d be down [with it], because she loves adventures,” Luna says. “She worked at a travel agency when she was younger. She was like a boss lady and took a lot of trips.” The two women journeyed to Cochabamba together to meet and photograph the group of inspiring cholitas. “My mum wasn’t really a typical shoot assistant, carrying my gear or anything, but she made sure that I was fed and I was drinking water, which is important!” laughs Luna.
After arriving in Cochabamba on the day of the shoot, the pair waited at a local restaurant for the skaters to arrive.
Cholita style: “It’s about identity; feeling close to my grandmother who wore traditional dress and passed some of it on to me to wear,” says Belen Fajardo. “It makes her feel proud and very happy that I’ve been able to wear this clothing.”
Striking back: “Wearing clothing that represents women as strong and determined fighters fills me with pride,” says skater Susan Mesa, “because my grandmother was like that. I didn’t appreciate that until I started to wear the pollera and was able to understand that the social stigma she’d been subjected to was also my struggle. I was going to do this not just for me but also for my grandmother, my mother and all the women who have ever been treated with disdain for wearing these clothes.”
“I remember sitting there with my mum, and then suddenly we saw them all skating toward us in their traditional clothes,” Luna recalls. “I was like, “Mum, this is the coolest thing ever.’” As they ate, Luna, her mother and the skaters got to know each other. “We had a meal that was very meat-heavy, and it reminded me and my mum of our own town [in Peru], so we talked about all our similarities and differences,” says Luna. The skaters shared stories of their mothers and grandmothers, and of the female traditions that inspire them in their presentday lives. “I feel like Peru and Bolivia are very similar, especially as both are the Andes. In our country, we pay a lot of respect to our elders, so they were very respectful towards my mum. That was so nice.”
At the skatepark, Luna took advantage of the low sunlight during the shoot. “I knew the colour of the clothing was going to be perfect, but the light was just right, too; a perfect combination of colours,” she says. The whole shoot was done in one day. “I spent time with each skater, getting to know them and letting them see how I work, just having an intimate moment between us and getting to know them on a deeper level through my camera. What was special was that by the end of the shoot they wanted to dress me in their traditional clothes. The power of these skaters comes not only from them practising a sport that [is often] not seen as being for girls, but also from their pride. Knowing where they come from and showing that to the world. It’s a reclamation of what was used against them before.”
Shooting and hanging out in Bolivia with ImillaSkate brought Luna and her mother even closer to their own cultural history and to each other. “After meeting the skaters, we started talking more about my grandma and my great grandma and what their lives were like, then we decided to hire a person to look into our family tree,” says Luna. “It was such a special moment to spend together.
“Spending time with these girls and shooting the group felt like the perfect way to celebrate where I come from. A way to show thanks to my mum for everything she gave me, and to show the rest of the world how beautiful and rich our culture is.”
Potion project: Luna and her mother at the witch market in La Paz, Bolivia, where you can buy dried llama foetuses used as offerings to Mother Earth
