A refreshing and visceral glimpse of rawness in a world increasingly plastic and pixelated, the photographs in Mono feel closer to stone or the contours of mountains, evoking the taste of rain, minerals, grain and salt. As poet and writer Brit Parks writes in her lyrical introduction: “A partial limb that could be stone, a stone record of a limb. We find ancient statues in the depths of the sea, is it a myth they survived centuries. Was she missing her arms from the start. We document our surprise, our belief in filmic gas, and endless longing to capture the strewn parts.”

The nude images evoke not sexuality, but something more primal. They celebrate the human body while reminding us of its place within nature: skin, bone, movement, matter. Although the collaboration between these female artists carries a particular sensitivity, the body is photographed beyond a fixed gender identity. The subject remains playful and exploratory, marked by bruises and moles, with bones resting quietly beneath the skin.

Fanego, who has travelled the world as a muse and artist, is known for combining vintage images of women with living plants, flowers and other foraged materials. At times, her work recalls Ana Mendieta’s self-portraits in nature and their intimate relationship between body and landscape. Sofia’s affinity for gathering began as a young girl on her family’s farm in Argentina. Today, she collects and excavates materials wherever she finds herself—from the cities she passes through to her studio in Normandy.

Tokyo-based photographer Hiroko Matsubara’s tactile sensibility is reflected in her use of soft grain and her affinity for the analogue medium. “I changed the size of the camera because the medium format wanted to take a little objective body part. The 35mm format wanted to focus more on the movement of a person. Sofia is a great expresser. She captures my feelings, replaces them with herself, and expresses them.”

The resulting images unfold as a call and response between photographer and subject—intimate, physical and difficult to define.

“We could drink two legs like beginner’s milk,” writes Parks, a multidisciplinary artist and art editor. Her poem Stone Amnesia accompanies the photographs as a surreal extension of them, giving language to something that is otherwise experienced instinctively:

“Chisel with it delicate / violence chipping at stone / breaking pulses, demonstrations / of an arm with a shoulder / telling your limbs / it’s a stand in for / a flesh tracing.”

— Brit Parks, Paris