One in five Americans lives with a disability. Yet their stories often remain unseen.
The Bold Beauty Project aims to change that by presenting powerful visual art exhibitions that showcase portraits of women with a variety of different disabilities.
On April 18, The Bold Beauty Project: Yale Edition event was held at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health.
The exhibition featured eight striking portraits paired with written and audio narratives, offering an intimate look into each participant’s story and perspective.
Through this kind of immersive display, the BBP aims to challenge assumptions, broaden societal definitions of beauty and amplify the voices of disabled individuals within the Yale community.
“We’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of very powerful, remarkable and interesting women with disabilities,” Director of the BBP Dr. Evo Ritvo said.
Launched in collaboration with the executive board of Disability Empowerment in Public Health at Yale, the project brought together student photographers and models to create a personal and artistic exploration of beauty, identity and lived experience.
Chantelle Pereira is one of the Yale-affiliated BBP models and her portrait was featured in the exhibition. She said her portrait, photographed by Ismaël Mounime, showcases her disability of endometriosis beautifully through hidden elements placed purposefully on the bookshelf in the background.
“I’m really grateful to the Bold Beauty Project for having such an inclusive definition of the disability that’s allowed me to show endometriosis to the community and show what living with chronic illness is like,” Pereira said.
Pereira said it was gratifying to see so many people supporting community-based art, but also to continue having a space where disabilities can be discussed and showcased openly to debunk stigmas associated with people who have them.
The Yale exhibition was spearheaded by Cassandra Michel, a graduate student in the School of Public Health. She began her journey with the BBP in 2022 creating the university edition series. The project has also mounted exhibitions at the University of Miami and Florida International University.
“At Yale disability isn’t something that people shy away from taking about, but continuing to break the stigma overall through this project has been amazing,” Michel said.
Another model for the exhibition and national and statewide Latiné disability advocate, Doris Maldonado Mendez and the photographer for her portrait, Kelly Mahoney attended the event.
Maldonado Mendez said her participation in the Bold Beauty Project is a revolutionary act of defiance against invisibility.
“To be seen is to survive; to create in the face of erasure is to reclaim power. The Bold Beauty Project isn’t just art, its resistance embodied,” Maldonado Mendez said.
Her portrait titled “Invisible with Liberty and Justice for All,” which was featured at the exhibit is a crafted visual representation that tells a story of visibility, defiance and self-acceptance.
“Photography, much like policy and advocacy, is a tool for truth-telling. My collaboration with Kelly Mahoney was an act of translating emotion into art,” Maldonado Mendez said.
Mahoney said the process of working on the BBP is a collaboration between herself and the model.
“Her image is something I’ve never done before,” Mahoney said. “I imagined her wearing big angel wings because her journey is never ending.”
Mahoney said working on the BBP gives one of the most marginalized populations a voice and it sparks conversations for those with visible and invisible disabilities, which echoes the mission of the project.
For more information about the Bold Beauty Project and to view past exhibitions, visit www.BoldBeautyProject.com or follow @boldbeautyproj on Instagram.
Jay’Mi Vazquez is a journalism student at Southern Connecticut State University. This story is republished via CT Community News, a service of the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, an organization sponsored by journalism departments at college and university campuses across the state.
