Creative Gifts for Social Change with Emma Puig de la Bellacasa
In this episode Emma shares her approach to using photography to propel social change. Emma shares her journey in the (I love this term) “University of Life” and how her intuition has guided many of her most important decisions.
We talk about the intersection of art, anthropology and feminism. Emma also shares an upcoming project that brings awareness to violence against women and violence against land and the ways they are interconnected.
With over 20 years of experience working in civil society and feminist organizations, indigenous women, Afro-descendants, migrants and refugees in promoting the rights of women and girls and a life free of violence.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with photographer, feminist and mother, Emma Puig de la Bellacasa.
Transcription
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:00:03
This is the Creative Alchemy podcast, and I'm your host, Monique Pantel. Here we explore creativity and life through story synchronicity and tales of possibility. This is a place for artists and dreamers to share wisdom, inspiration, and empower you to explore your own creative life. Together, we hold space to speak dreams into reality and share transformative ways of creating and living life. Let's dream alchemize and create. Thank you for being here. Welcome to Creative Alchemy.
Today's conversation is so special to me. I am very excited to share this beautiful conversation about using our creative gifts for social change. This is something that I'm so deeply passionate about. And if you know me personally and you're listening to this podcast, you know that this is something that has been a central focus of my work for many years. And if you're new to this, I'm so excited for you to come along this journey and come along into this conversation about using art and how it can lend itself to really shifting society and creating social change. And so it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Emma Puig de la Bellacasa, who has for more than 20 years worked with civil society and feminist organizations, indigenous women, Afro descendants, migrants and refugees in promoting the rights of women and girls and a life free of violence. She is an anthropologist with pre-doctoral studies in ethnopsychology and gender studies. And I can just say personally that knowing Emma has been such a gift, she is someone that I aspire to be like. I find her so inspiring and so magnetic. And I'm so excited to share her energy and her wisdom and our conversation today. So welcome, Emma.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:02:12
Oh, Monique, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you very much for thinking about me to have this space with you, it's really a privilege. I have to say that traveling to Cambutal to me is like magical, but meeting you is even more magical. It has been amazing. I feel that I met you for a long time ago in other lives and I really feel that I would love to live close to you, to have the spaces to drink wine and discuss about creativity photography. So I want to say that I also admire you. You inspire me. It's amazing, your energy, how you are able to mobilize incredible woman together, coming together, moving together to do creative things. So I'm really excited about being here and having this discussion with you and also to let you know that to me, being surrounded by incredible woman is something that I really need every day of my life. I feel that there is so much powerful stories and there is a lot of individual power within the woman. And I think that when we get together, we really generate collective power. And as you said, it's not always easy when you have decide to have children, which to me has been the most creative and complicated thing I have done in my life because it also had an impact in my creative life, as we have discussed before. Before my motherhood life, I used to have more time, as we know, or woman. And I started to generate space of collaboration of other women that were also engaging artistic activities. And I think the tool I have found, it was my way of expressing myself, it was the photography and I think it's linked to my personal life. Everything is always linked to personal life. Well, I was born of a mother from Colombia and a father from Spain. I was born in Spain. But I have always had this relationship with migration for displacement and these stories of life that came with my mother. And I felt that photography was the way to start to observe the world and also it was the way to connect with other life stories and of course my decision was to connect with the stories of other women. So I think this is the way in which I have started to discover that the photography was a way to communicate with others. And I decided to study artistic photography in Belgium, in Brussels, which was amazing because of course I think you can get to photography and other artistic activities without going to the school. But for me, it helped me to find ways to translate, not technical ways to translate what I wanted to do through photography. So yeah, this is more or less how I get to the photography universe. And then it is true that maternity has been a challenge to me. I think it's still a challenge because it creates sometimes we are very tired, we have a challenge to find a space to develop some ideas. So to me, this space of discussion, a space for collaboration at the way to find motivation, energy from other women to get together in a specific project. So if I don't have energy, I'm sure my colleague will have energy to share with me. And the upper side is tomorrow I have more energy, I will share my energy with another artist. Yeah, this is how I figure it out.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:06:17
Amazing. And I find myself doing this where I almost save my creative energy until the end of the day. I'm going through my day, I'm with my family, my son and I think, oh, I can't wait until everyone is asleep and then I can maybe find half an hour for journaling, for writing, for any sort of ideating creative projects that I want to happen. But what happens is that by the time everyone's sleeping, I'm also ready to sleep. So I have no energy left. So I do know this is a season, but I just find it so fascinating because a lot of times there seems like you are really special in the way that you have an incredible creative gift with photography. When I look at your images, they have soul to them, they have depth, they have story. And you especially capture black and white, really in a really incredible way. So you have this incredible artistic gift, but then you also have you come from the academic world, so you're an anthropologist and you've blended these two sort of approaches. So you've got the artistic and then you've got the intellectual and you've blended them. But on top of that, you have this incredible 20 plus years of field experience. You have been all over the world. You have worked with people. So you're not just sitting at a desk on an organizational level, which is sometimes what you do, but you can really speak to the experience. And that's something that's really energized me. I don't come from the academic world at all, although I'm very interested. I read a ton and I went to university and that sort of thing. But my studies weren't in business, and they were not related to gender studies or art in particular. And I just think it's so fascinating how you've blended these worlds of experience and field work and then you have your artistic gifts and then you have the organizational sort of academic perspective. When did that sort of start to make sense to you? Because did you come from more of an artistic start and then you were like, oh, maybe I'll explore academia, or were you in the academic world and you're like, oh, photography would really lend itself well to where I'd like to go. I'm interested in your journey because this.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:09:01
Is a very complicated question to answer. I think what I feel is that I have been doing things without thinking very much.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:09:13
Okay, I love that. As in following your heart?
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:09:19
Yes, very much. And I don't know if it's a good pathway, but it is true that sometimes I begin to think when things have already happened. So I feel that my personality is very much first, it is the action. So it's something that comes out, is something very powerful within me that really mobilized my body. And then when I saw the action, suddenly I started to think. So I think that has been my personality. And I really feel that I'm very connected with the I don't know if we say that in English. I feel that there are energies that show you where to go. And of course, there is a lot of mistakes in my pathway and things that I could done better, but it has been a little bit like that. And then it is true that I come from a family of people that went to the university. So it was like the logical pathway. You go to the university, you study, and then if you have artistic interest, this is something that comes after or at the same time. But the universities like what you should do that to me, choosing to do anthropology, it has been a way to get to people. I feel that the university of life caused my attention more than the books. Of course, books an academy is key, but I was feeling very distance from the community life. The neighborhood lies from this action life, which I felt I belong a lot. So I think anthropology has been the pathway to really start to think about how others live and to have the opportunity to be invited to be part of other story of life. So I have been working in indigenous communities, latin America and the Caribbean. But to me the photography was a key tool to really have the opportunity to have this integral approach to what I was going through. Sometimes you can write down what you see, but if you are not very good writing down what you see, it's very difficult to translate, to share these things that you are seeing with others. But I feel that the photography gives you the opportunity to share. How do you see the life, how do you see the community, how do you see some experience that you are going through? But it also gives the opportunity to communicate with others, with a tool that can be also used by the community. So to me it has been this combination, to me it's one package. So the academic site, of course has given me the opportunity to meet incredible people. But I feel more better when I'm using the photography to communicate and to discuss and to have this conversation with the people in the communities, in the neighborhood. And I feel that very powerful and I really admire and respect the life of these leaders at the community level, these women that have not gone to the university, but they are very smart, they are very clever and they are really the ones that know what we have to do. So yeah, it's this combination of trying to find a way to communicate with people and to use all this information to transform things that we see we don't like in general, these things that I feel we need to transform and to move forward. Social change are related to the rights of women and angel adolescence.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:13:27
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think visual arts, well, for me it's photography and film, those are sort of because not everyone has that community level interaction with marginalized communities. People tend to stay in their bubble, their social kind of bubble. And if you aren't presented with the opportunity to interact with other people outside of that bubble, well, people are usually pretty comfortable staying within that bubble. But there's just so much beauty and there's so much learning to have and so much perspective to gain when you go outside of your bubble. And what happens, I find with visual art, with photography and video, it's a safe way to penetrate that bubble, that social bubble. So you're telling a story of a particular person in a particular situation who really could use a helping hand. We go on a website for an NGO nonprofit charity and those are the stories that we interact with and those are sort of the penetrating of the bubble and I've experienced that a lot in my life. My background, I have deep roots in charity. My dad is a photographer also, so I'm a second generation photographer and him and my mother met working for an organization that supported the liberation of people with intellectual disabilities from institutional life in the well, they adopted me and I was raised in a really interesting community of just like so many different people from so many different walks of life. And what I saw my dad do is really share his gift of telling people stories through photography. He was so generous with just capturing people's lives and what's so interesting is that he's capturing people's lives of people who have been institutionalized, people who have really lived a really difficult life experience and whose people's stories have never been told before at that point. This is folks with Down syndrome that were coming from an institution. And what I've seen in my life and being raised in that community now that I'm in my mid 30s is, yes, we have a long way to go, but I've seen real social change. Some of these people that I lived with in a home, my friend Ross there's now Stacy, lots and lots of people, their lives have changed for the better. And also I see the way society interacts with them in a more compassionate, a more open, a more inclusive way. And it's not like, again, there's a long way to go. But I just think that my dad is this shining example of if you are generous and with your creative gifts that there is a real opportunity for social change. And when I started my photography business, that was like my model, my business model. I said, okay, what kind of work do I really want to be doing? And that was something that I called heart projects. So basically I wanted to offer my services. I was a really good photographer, like I'd really owned my skills. And when I set out to do this thing, I said, okay, I want to shoot for free. I just want to shoot for free for organizations that don't have a lot of cash flow and wouldn't normally have access to a great photographer or a filmmaker. And I want to do it for free, so I'm going to charge a lot of money for my other services. So weddings and portrait sessions, things like that, people are going to pay, but they know that I do this other work for free. So it really fed me in a lot of ways.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:17:40
Well, before that, I would like to say that it's really powerful to hear your personal story. And I really think that what you mentioned is very political because you have taken really a very committed decision that there is all these expertise that you have this gift of being an amazing photographer. I'm a fan of using some spaces where you can of course get some extra fund to really be able to support other projects where people don't have the possibility to pay your service. And I feel this is really powerful and I also feel that this is really amazing since you are really working and making visible the people as you mentioned before. And I think it's related to your personal story, the people that has not had the opportunity to share their life story. So I think that this is so powerful and inspiring for me and for many women in the world and everyone. So I really love that. Well, related to social change, sometimes I think there is first of all the political or the personal intention and commitment to change things, not to contribute to change things. And I think that this is something we need to do altogether. It's very difficult to do alone. But I think having the intention to really join efforts with other persons of different universe, I think this is the first step. So to me that has been always like in the center of everything I do. And I think it's related to my personal story as well. And thinking of my mother has to go from Colombia because Colombia was in award and there was no opportunities and she went to Spain. Additional to that, I have grow up in bedroom in Brussels and I have been surrounded of a lot of refugee people. Migrant people can't do process because they couldn't live in their country. And addition to that, I have been always very sensitive to the injustice. I was always angry to see things that were not among justice. So I think there is something inside it's like an energy, a way of looking to the world. That to me is the first step for starting to try to contribute to social change. And then it is true that would you choose to photography? I think this is also important. You don't need to go to a field visit to the community. For example, my case in Sierra Leone where I was supporting a project with rural woman. You can also open your eyes and see what is going on in your neighborhood. It might be exactly yeah, that we have someone living close to us that is going through a very challenging situation. Or maybe there is for example right now here in Panama City in my neighborhood, there is a project to cut all the trees and to really do something not really good for environment. So there is a community that has been engaged in a process to really stop this. So how are we open our eyes and to see what is going on around us and how we can use the photography as a tool for transformation. Because at the end the camera is very powerful. It's like, to me it's like revolutionary. And with this camera, you can make visible things that many people have the opportunity to see. So I will be able to make photos of how they are cutting these trees and show, as you said, through social media, we live in a world where all the image goes very quickly. So this is an opportunity. And in addition to that, when we have all this image, how we can link with organization that are activists, that are promoting rights and we get in contact and we offer those pictures to be disseminated. So I think there is many ways and I think we can really identify in which level in our life we are and we can do something. So to me, choosing what we want to show to the world is the first step. And of course, right now in my war, in my life, all what is related to Woman's right, girls Right is really in my heart. I'm terrified about all the violence against women and girls that we live through the world in Panama, but not only in Panama, all over Latin America and the Caribbean. But the good news is that we have feminist movements, joined women's movement that are organized and they are really trying to drive change. So I think the photography tool can serve a lot for supporting this movement as well. I think that might be some ideas.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:23:10
When did you get involved with women's rights and girls rights specifically? When did that really turn into, okay, this is something that I really want to dive into and get involved with. You're super passionate feminist and I absolutely love. I think that's one of the first things that you said to me. I was like, yes, I love this woman. Who is this Emma? And you have a daughter and you have a daughter as well, and you are raising her in Latin America. So I'm so curious, when did you decide that you'd really like to focus in this area for yourself?
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:23:50
I really don't remember that, but I feel like I was born feminist. But for sure it's not like that. I think old Woman someday we woke up and we have like a light that gets powerful. It's like you get like, oh my God, I need to start to think about this, I need to get information about this, I need to be inspired by other women. So it's like you wake up and this happens very much. For example, with woman that has been going through violence, one day they woke up and there is something that connect them or connect us to our internal power. Because all of us, we have an internal power. But unfortunately, we live in a society where there is a lot of inequality and we live within a patriarchal system in which we value more all the masculinity things that the feminine thing. So we have been born in that contest. So through our gender socialization, through our children's lives, we get all this message that we don't have value. So I think it's normal that women will feel a little bit not very sure about ourselves. We feel that what we do is not good. Our self esteem is not great. So I think feminists help us to really connect with this power and then to start to see all the power around you, which is, of course, woman's life, and to see I am not alone. I think I can get inspiration from other women, and I can get help to, for example, stop living a life of violence. So I think, to me, this is the start point of feminist. And I think this you can get from many woman in your neighborhood, I don't know in your life. Sometimes we have a grandmother that inspired us. Sometimes it's a cousin, a sister, or a friend that someday tell us something that, oh, my God, you wake up. And then it is true that little by little, I start to get in contact with women's rights organizations at the community level in Latin America, latin America. It's amazing. There is a strong movement of feminist woman and also indigenous women and predecendent women doing amazing things and driving change. So I think all these women has inspired me and continue to inspire me. And I think this has an impact in what I do and related to education. For example, I have a daughter. I also have a son. And it is true that you get very intentional in the message you share with her. But it happened also with my son, which I feel even more difficult because we really have to support him, support children, to really engage in positive masculinity, because when they go out to the school and when they go out to the park, all the message they get is like, you know, boys have to be strong. They don't have to cry. It's all this message that are related to patriarchy. I think this is how I get to this feminist life. And I think we have a responsibility also to always share message with our colleagues, with our friends in the supermarket, when we start to talk about the cheese with a woman, and suddenly she tells you the story of her life. And those are also opportunities to really exchange some message and give support. And I think in any moment of.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:28:00
Our life, yeah, wow, I'm with you 100%. I think you're right when you say the light bulb sort of goes off. I've had that moment myself several times. Not coming from a violent experience, but just more so, a reflective thinking of the ways that I interact with the world and what messages have been told to me as a woman, where my power lies. As a young girl, as a young woman, it was told, it was all external, what you look like. This is how you get things. And I didn't have a lot of confidence in my intellectual life. So it's just really interesting when that light bulb does go off, you reevaluate everything. You say, okay, why do I have a relationship with this person? Or even if it can be any interaction relationship, and it can be work, it can be familial, it can be romantic, it can be your friendships. It's just so interesting when you look at it from a different lens or as you said, when the light bulb goes off. I remember many, many moons ago coming on to this realization of what patriarchy is and being like, just so floored at how it infiltrates every aspect of a woman's life so well. Thank you for sharing, Emma. You're so fascinating. Can you tell me what are you working on right now that's filling your creative cup? What is filling you up on a creative level, on a sole level? I know you're leaving, you're going on vacation to your homeland, to Spain, but I'm so curious. Are you working on any creative projects that are really filling your creative cup?
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:30:07
Yes. Well, before answering your question, you made me think about that sometimes, even though that we are very feminist and we are promoting rights, and we have moments in which we feel really small and without power, and it happens to me, and this is also linked to my artistic world. Sometimes I feel that what I'm trying to do, it doesn't make sense and it's not good. And you are also tired because you have children. And so all this comes together. So I think it's related to what I'm going to answer right now is that, well, I haven't moving forward a project which is called now it's called Mujerago Woman Tree. And I'm working in making like in English.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:31:07
Like a collage, almost.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:31:09
It's a collage, but it's a recognizing I'm working it's like a feminist ecologist project. So I'm trying to link the life of some woman, which has been environmental defenders, and try to make this link between the defense of the territory, the land and where they live. This is very much related to Indonesia political commitment, how territory, the land in where they live, and how this links to where we have this extracted. This company that comes to the forest and they cut the trees and they do things that are not good for the community because the water gets dirty and all what we know it has an impact on the environment, how this is linked to the body of the woman. Because in these communities, the woman are the ones that are defending the territory, the environment, and this is totally connected to their health. So I'm trying to work from that idea, and I'm working in doing collage with some photography of women's leaders and also linking that to the environment. So I'm searching, I'm trying, I'm playing how to build these stories of life and it's totally related to my concern and my worry about what is happening right now in Panama. Of these companies that are coming to the jungle. For example, in Eldarie, they are cutting trees. And this has an impact in the life of people and particularly the woman. It is also true that many places where these companies come and they really have an impact in the communities. We have examples of sexual violence against women as well, workers coming to these territories. And there are stories of sexual violence in case the woman of the community. So all of that to me is like the same problem. And so I'm working right now, making this transforming to some photography that I would like to. They are very big and we can see this forest and the woman. And I feel this is a way also to show and to evidence this work, the sense of the territory from the indigenous woman. But also, of course, this is also part of this social change that they are attending. So this is more or less what I'm doing now. I'm trying to do it very plastic with a lot of color. So, yeah, I am in this process. I have a start already and it's not easy. And sometimes I feel, oh, my God, this is not going well. So this is more or less my project right now. I hope in fourth month I will say it is ready, I can show something. And of course, I'm trying to do this together with them. So this is key.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:34:51
Yes, absolutely. And it speaks to the violence against the land and the violence against women and the interconnection of that entire sort of cycle. Wow. Are you hoping to display it somewhere? I hope I can come to Panama City and see this project.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:35:19
I hope I will be ready to show and to collaborate with other women that are also doing other things that we can come together and have like a discussion, a dialogue, and having some rough, diverse and maybe conversation engaging indigenous women which are denouncing this for sent to this. Because this is, I hope, cross fingers. And of course, I would love for you to be here and maybe to come with your photography as well and to join some. We can do something together that will be amazing.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:36:00
I would love to be oh my gosh, that would be such a pleasure. And now I feel like my Spanish is at the point where I understand and I can speak to the point of communicating somewhat clearly. So I would feel more confident doing that now. So. Yeah, I can't wait. Well, you'll have to keep me and keep our community at Creative Alchemy in the loop. If anyone is listening from Panama City, then they can join or maybe they can join virtually too. We could set something up like that when it's time. Emma, you are such a gift and you inspire. Me so much. Thank you for taking the time to chat today. And if anyone is listening and is sitting on creative gifts and they're passionate about social change, maybe this conversation is a nice fire starter in the world of sharing your gifts and working with organizations that are doing good work.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:37:10
Thank you very much for this space. I feel so honored.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:37:16
Me, too. Thank you so much, Emma.
Emma Puig de la Bellacasa (Guest) 00:37:19
Thank you to you. You can't imagine how nice it was for me. Take care.
Monique Pantel (Host) 00:37:24
Me too. Okay. Take care, Emma. Ciao. I hope you really enjoyed that conversation with Emma. I wanted to share something that came after our conversation had ended. Her and I were sort of debriefing and casually chatting about life, and something that came up was in the conversation. We talked a lot about collaborative energy and how collaborating with other women can just be so incredible and so expansive, really. And something that we had talked about was upcoming projects that we are excited and passionate about. And something that I've shared on this podcast is the women's artist residency that I will be eventually building. And her and I got to sort of chatting about different workshops that maybe we could do here in the town that I live, and with photography and storytelling and also having to do with self esteem and uplifting women. And then we got to sort of chatting about my partner and I. We bought a small piece of land and we'll eventually build a house there and possibly phase one of the women's artist residency. But we got to chatting about why does the space need to exist? Wouldn't it be interesting to have an exhibition, an art exhibition on this land? It could be so cool. It's really beautiful mountains in the background, and it's just a flat piece of land. And it's sort of the intersection. It comes in the very middle between the town and the beach. So it's almost a link between the two communities that live here. We both felt so energized with that. So I just wanted to share that with you. That is a potential project that's coming up at the end of the year when I returned to campus, when I returned to Panama. And I'm just really excited about that. So just wanted to end this podcast with this positive note to share your ideas and speak your dreams out loud, because you never know who will be on the other end of that sort of collaboration. So have a beautiful day and I can't wait to have you back.
LINKS
Creative Alchemy’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creativealchemypodcast/
Emma’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmapuigbella
Monique’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monique_pantel/
