chantal: "photography is healing"

If you follow us on Instagram, you have probably seen Chantal Convertini’s photography… either on our account or on any other account on the platform. Her profile @paeulini has 133K followers and her beautiful, poetic, raw, sensitive nudes are Instagram-darlings. For good reason. Her photos feel like stories with layers upon layers, especially her self-portraits. It’s hard not to sit and wonder about the moment that the photo represents. So we were obviously over the moon when Chantal said yes to an interview. We dig deep into her own journey, why she finds it important to also share vulnerability on her platform, how nudes have affected her and how we can all become more confident in our sexuality. We loved this conversation and hope you will too.

Hi Chantal, can you start by giving our readers a quick intro into who you are?

My name is Chantal Convertini, I am a 28 year old photographer and artist based in Basel, Switzerland.

We love following you on Instagram (like the rest of the world), where you share such poetic, authentic and beautiful photos - and a lot of them are portraying the nude body. How did this journey start for you?

I was always interested in portraying humans. Landscapes or architecture never really caught my eye. I started with portraits and with my interest in film photography I found Ryan Muirheads work that revolved a lot around nudity, skin, honesty. I was very drawn to it and it encouraged me to strive towards that too.

You often take stunning nude self-portraits. How does this process make you feel?

I cannot recall exactly how it felt in the first year or years exactly. I just knew it was really helpful, healing, calming.

Now there is also a lot of playfulness included, confidence, a wanting to understand more, to be more honest. I don't always feel beautiful or sexy, even that is also the case from time to time, but always very physical, very present with myself and my flesh and bones.

Have you felt a change within yourself since you started taking self-portraits?

One thousand percent yes. To be honest probably not everything is thanks to my self-portraits as life has multiple factors and happenings and experiences that form you, but I am almost a completely different person now. And self-portraits did a looot of healing.

Do you think it’s important we see more openness around nudity, sexuality, the body?

Definitely more honesty about sexuality and bodies and a much more natural and normalised/non-sexualised view on nudity.

We especially love your photography because it shows intimacy in such an authentic, tender and relatable way compared to what we see in Hollywood movies. Do you relate to the way the media portray sexiness?
The media (also a huge part on social media) couldn't be further from the reality. Always the best light, the most flattering angle, make-up, photoshop.. the list is endless. There is very little realness out there. Don't forget even I know how to make everything look "aesthetic", it’s part of the art, but it's not always the truth.

You’ve recently shared a post on Instagram explaining that you found it important to let people know that even though your pictures tell the story of a confident, sexually empowered person, you too have struggled with your sexuality. How come you decided to share this?
I did not only struggle in the past. I struggle now. It's a very vulnerable and difficult journey and the worst was always to feel alone in this. Weird and not normal. And the feeling just increased as sexual health sites that celebrate sexual openness started to repost my work a lot as I figured my work portrays only that confidence. And it might be misleading people to think that I shoot these images because I have figured it all out and it is easy for me. But I do them because I am exploring, healing and struggling. I just really didn't want to be one more reason someone feels inadequate. Also, sharing is healing too.. :)

Lastly: sitre is here to make sure no one ever feels alone or wrong about their sexuality. How do you think we can move towards a society where everyone feels free to explore their own true desires?

Uff, a difficult one. You know, it can be such little things that stick with you and make you suffer or traumatised or whatever else. It's not just the big society. BUT I think we’ve lost a lot of physical bonding between family and friends, where we learn intimacy in the first place and we only really have physical intimacy in a romantic context. This is actually a bit messed up. We do have a lot of shame around certain body parts, or for example they solely exist in a sexualised context, that is really harmful.

Also there is this expectation that we are all hyper-sexual beings and having lots of sex is the "coolest" thing, and at the same time some of us, mostly women, get shamed when they enjoy their sex life. All of that creates a lot of expectations and confusion.

I don't know how we could solve this all, but more honesty would most certainly not be wrong.

Thank you Chantal for sharing your process and thoughts with us. It really touched us.

chantal: "photography is healing"

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