Natalie Karpushenko

We didn’t pose. We were present. No wetsuits, no masks - nothingbetween our skin and the ocean. Nine women, like mermaids, enteredthe icy 11°C waters, completely bare, raw, fearless, and free. Whathappened wasn’t a performance. It was a surrender. A quietunfolding. A return. This was more than a photoshoot. A stillmoment that echoed something ancient and true. We are not separatefrom nature. We are nature. Cape Town, South Africa

We didn’t pose. We were present. No wetsuits, no masks – nothing between our skin and the ocean. Nine women, like mermaids, entered the icy 11°C waters, completely bare, raw, fearless, and free. What happened wasn’t a performance. It was a surrender. A quiet unfolding. A return. This was more than a photoshoot. A still moment that echoed something ancient and true. We are not separate from nature. We are nature. Cape Town, South Africa.

Spontaneous shoot with artist's close friends Pauline and Bianca, theyjumped in the pool fully naked after they got soaked in the tropicalrain. Bali. Indonesia

Women from different corners of the world came together — from Africa, Europe, Asia. Among them were both Ukrainian and Russian women.

They lay with their bare bodies on sharp, glass-like fragments of hardened lava. It was painful. The lava left scratches on their skin. This act became a performance — a gesture of unity, pain, acceptance, and strength. They lay side by side, without division, as a symbol of equality and peace.

We are all red inside. The lava represents renewal, a symbol of cleansing and complete liberation from prejudice, from everything that divides us. Out of burning pain, something honest, raw, and alive is born.

Bali. Indonesia

Tracing our footsteps back to the origin, the ocean. Like an umbilicalthat ties us back to the womb. Created in collaboration with twentyincredible women, with very long hair.