Behind the powerful serenity, spirituality and sexuality of Carlota Guerrero

INT: So how did you make the leap from that to shooting Solange?

CG: I was working mainly in Barcelona, which is a small town and there are no huge clients. I didn’t have an agency or anything. But I was really active on my Instagram and that’s how Solange found me. I was like 24 at the time, and that started my professional career for real. 

INT: That's incredible. Did you feel like it was a jump, or were you ready? 

CG: It was my first big project. I’d been to New York once before but I didn’t know America at all. It was a huge responsibility with an artist like Solange. With her trying to communicate such a complex message, a message I didn’t know much about because, in Spain, the Black community… it’s getting bigger and the Black Lives Matter Movement is getting stronger, but I went to school without a Black person in my life, so I didn’t know much about the context. It was hardcore. I suddenly was in New Orleans with this group of super politically active people and they were telling me everything. It was like a master’s for me in every aspect: social, artistic, professional, everything.

INT: So what happened after that? Did everything just go crazy with your work?

CG: I mean, it was quite crazy. Now, I want to go back and hug myself in that moment, because I was used to being super calm, here in my space with my friends, everything low-key. And [the Solange project] came to me without me trying to have a super career. I’m ambitious with my projects, but I wasn’t as ambitious in my career. I didn’t want to become an international photographer travelling everywhere. I didn’t think about that, ever. So for me getting that suddenly, it was a lot to process. But then little by little everything found its place. I got signed with WeFolk, and they started helping me choose projects correctly and take it step by step. It was beautiful. And I started getting lots of opportunities to make proper productions and money to create my ideas, it was amazing.

INT: It sounds like it gave you a step up to let your imagination run a bit wilder.

CG: Yes, suddenly I didn’t have to, like, take all of the equipment to the shoot myself! I used to produce a lot of my projects, so I didn’t know how the industry really worked. That was the first time I started to understand I could have a team, and for me to just think of the art. That was incredible. 

INT: How much of the choreography do you do yourself? Is it quite a loose process, or do you have a specific image you want to create when you start out?

CG: I direct all of it. And the funny part about that is I've always been that type of person. When I was a child, I would direct my friends’ dance routines, or when I was a teenager I’d be the one saying “right everybody’s going to do this” and creating a game. It’s something that comes naturally to me. I will be on set with a group of girls and something comes to me, and it becomes a playful situation and we just perform something. For me, it’s just like I’m documenting the performance. What I enjoy is creating an energy – real connections and real moments of enjoyment and love and community. And then, if I’m lucky, I get a good picture.

INT: Is that why you’ve moved more into video?

CG: The photography and film projects have developed in tandem, for sure. But what’s important is what’s happening, not what’s filmed. First priority is the situation itself. And in second place is the film or the photography. Sometimes we don’t even get one good photo. And that’s OK.

INT: Looking specifically at some recent video work, the Desigual performance piece at Art Basel Miami and the Spiritual Striptease, would you say you’re trying to reclaim women’s sexuality, in a way?

CG: When I started, my work was all about super ethereal, classical women, soft colours and harmony, and it came from fear – which is OK. I completely respect my decision at that moment. It was what I needed to do because I was reacting to the male gaze on women, and I wanted to portray women in a very safe space. Then the years went by… I’m a sexual person, an open person, I’m not a conservative person at all, but I looked back and I suddenly realised for a long time I’ve been portraying women as virgins, without thinking too much about it, it was just my intuition. So then I said: I need to do a huge orgy, because, why not? Because women are ethereal, but they’re also super sexual. And both things are equally respectable. For me, it was like putting both images in the same position with the same respect and with the same love. I’m not trying to be controversial or polemic, I’m just trying to portray the beauty and the dignity of women being hyper-sexual, without having to be apologetic.

INT: Yes because it’s showing nudity and sexuality in a completely different way...

CG: With dignity and respect.

INT: You describe your creative process as quite chaotic, why is that?

CG: I feel somehow like the ideas come to me, and they possess me completely. I’ll be reading a book or taking a walk or dancing or whatever, and suddenly, I get a super clear image in my mind, so I need to sit down and write it down or draw it or something. And then I get completely obsessed about that. I start writing people and organising stuff, and putting it all together and researching. Sometimes it starts with a single image and I develop the whole concept from there. For example, this is like a Bible scene, so I go read that part of the Bible, but then I’ll try to bring in more contemporary references, so how can I relate this Bible thing to the Kardashians. I get into this super crazy space with lots of ideas flying, and I try to be super open and not put any limits on it because I understand that we’re creating something that’s new, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable, and maybe nobody’s gonna understand it, but I need to give it space. So it starts forming itself. 

I can get really really crazy in those early days. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and start thinking about more layers that I can add to it. I become quite stressed… but I feel like in Spanish that means something different. It’s not negative, it means that I’m very awake. I lose focus on everything else, with real life; I’m in that spiral of creativity. 

Then the day of the shoot comes and 99 per cent of the time it’s the best day ever. I’m super happy, almost levitating. I’m possessed by the idea. That day, I have a lot of drive and direction. And then when it’s finished, I’m so sad. It’s like giving birth to something. I always feel like I have postpartum depression. I’m trying to deal with that better too, now, and accept that it’s okay to be sad.