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"   Photo: The Holy Beauty Project Vol. 2  Rossina Bossio is a Colombian-born, France-based artist whose work questions notions of femininity, and seduction by referring simultaneously to religion, pop culture and classical notions of beauty. Her current project, the Holy Beauty Project discusses the various rituals around being a woman in the Western world. She explores the topic via painting, photography, and more recently film. Rossina just released a short piece of video art, which she directed and danced in. We met her and discussed how her childhood in Colombia, her anger at clich\u00E9s, and how she taught herself how to dance by looking at Youtube clips. ELLE: When did dance start to appeal to you?Rossina Bossio: I wanted to give life to the characters of my paintings. I wanted to take them out of the canvas and give them movement in time and space, in order to make their message more vivid. To achieve this, video and dance seemed to me the most suitable art forms. The dance moves for the video come mainly from watching and mimicking women&amp;#039;s movements and poses in pop and hip-hop music videos, as well as fashion videos on the Internet. In other words, the top model posing and hip swinging, the pin-up allure, the stripper moves and all the typical booty shacking that constantly appear in this sort of videos. The training included rehearsing sessions in my living room in front of the computer for several months. I also started wearing 5-inch heels while painting in order to get used to them.   Photo: Rossina Bossio  ELLE: What is the leading theme of this video?RB: This video is an extension of a series of paintings made for The Holy Beauty Project, which explores, among other things, the seductive power of images. I&amp;#039;m looking into the way ancient (religious iconography) and current icons (celebrities, fashion models, pop and rock stars, etc) influence our behavior and the perception of our bodies, hence the construction of our identity. But the true protagonists of this project are women, because it&amp;#039;s their image what has been recurred to the most throughout history, as a vehicle to sell products and foster ideals of beauty and morals. ELLE: How is this vision of femininity linked to your upbringing?RB: The themes I&amp;#039;m exploring are intimately linked to my life experience. I grew up in a very conservative and religious environment, with a very stiff idea of what a woman should be. I&amp;#039;ve been breaking the mold through art for years now. In that sense, the concept of movement is very important to this project: movement of ideas, movement of beliefs and behaviors that lead to change and liberation. And that is also why it was so important to use video and dancing following a &amp;quot;traditional&amp;quot; medium, such as painting. The attempt to &amp;quot;liberate&amp;quot; myself from those ideas I grew up with became more real than ever. \uFEFF The Holy Beauty Project Vol. 2 from Rossina Bossio on Vimeo. ELLE: What are you trying to say about contemporary femininity?RB: I&amp;#039;ve been working on the subject of women&amp;#039;s identity for a couple of years, and I still wouldn&amp;#039;t dare to make any closed statements about femininity. However, I can say I hate the clich\u00E9s and labels surrounding the word &amp;quot;feminine.&amp;quot; I also know that there are still many women who, like me, have struggled to achieve their goals because of traditional ideals and beliefs regarding what a woman is supposed to be. Of course, these perceptions are shaped by the culture I grew up in: Colombia is a country where sexism and religion have a lot of power. However, sexism is still present in several places around the world, at different levels. Here in France, where I&amp;#039;m currently living, the struggle for women&amp;#039;s rights continues even after the feminist revolution. And collaborating with Swedish artist Jonna Bergelin, who designed the costumes for the video, made me realize that there are still things left to fight for in a country that&amp;#039;s allegedly one of the leaders in gender equality. Through my work I question the condition of women at these times, by bringing forth the stereotypes present in the different representations of women that I believe perpetuate gender inequality. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a6365/rossina-bossio-puts-up-a-beautiful-fight-20238/>