When your bed becomes a place you’d rather disappear from.
French photographer and director Zoé Cavaro explores vaginismus in Important to Disappear, a deeply personal series about intimacy, shame and learning to live with a condition that is still rarely talked about.
Vaginismus causes involuntary contractions of the vaginal muscles, making penetration difficult or impossible, and has a strong psychosomatic component, with psychological factors such as anxiety, fear or previous painful experiences playing an important role. For Zoé, years of misdiagnoses and the feeling of having an “abnormal” sexuality turned her bed into a place of frustration and failure.
So she took her camera somewhere else: the mountains.
Between intimate self-portraits in her bedroom and vast, almost otherworldly landscapes, Zoé creates a visual language for something that is otherwise invisible. Rocks, snow, mountains and tiny human figures become metaphors for loneliness, vulnerability, pain — but also freedom and refuge.
The result is quiet, raw and incredibly beautiful. And perhaps most importantly, it’s a story about taking back the right to tell your own story, on your own terms. ♡
Scroll through Important to Disappear below.
