Roca Madre

Selfportrait holding my daughter, taken in Gran Canaria (Spain) in December of 2021. This selfportrait is the first one of a series that documents mothers with their children in nature. It marked the beginning of an important moment in my practice and in the focus of my work. The birth of my daughter threw me headlong into one of the most beautiful, emotional, mentally demanding and challenging moments of my existence. After experiencing my first pregnancy in a long confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I gave birth to my daughter and myself as a mother. Too often women are confronted with the need to be that perfect mother, who recovers quickly physically and mentally after pregnancy and delivery of her baby. In many cases it is considered taboo to talk about postpartum depression, claustrophobia, mourning for that person and that body that have changed forever. No one talks about loneliness, no one talks about anxiety, no one talks about the emotional burden, the guilt for the inability to meet society's and one's own expectations. Roca Madre was created in a moment of change, in which a process of acceptance towards myself and towards the mother I am was taking place. My body was soft, but strong. I felt beautiful for the first time in months even though I hadn't brushed my hair in days. It is an image that does not pretend to show a reality that does not belong to me, but shows me as I am, resilient yet fragile. Isa Rus is a self taught photographer from Andalucía (Southern Spain) currently based in Berlin, Germany. Her work focuses on the documentation of women, nature and raw parenthood, her work being predominantly autobiographical. As a consequence of migrating to Germany in 2012, her work also explores the idea of identity and home.