1001Fesses project
Emilie Mercier and Frédérique Marseille, on a mission to collect 1001 women bums.Discovering the beauty in each and every body.
We have been collecting the beauty of the female form in an attempt to address a widespread obsession: hating our backsides. We are trying to create a visual poem by taking pictures of woman of any age, shape and part of the world !
The pictures are only the final touch of the actual art project. Indeed, it’s the encounters with all those women, that little sorority moment, that we seek through this experience.
These pictures are always taken in daylight with a Mamya 645 film camera, which is special in this era of instant digital results. All the models are anonymous, in a pursuit of the female essence hidden in all of us. By photographing anonymous bodies, we try to picture the beauty in every shape. The beauty in female identity.
That's us.
Our project first started just for fun, as a way to spend some quality time together. In only one week, it became viral at first in Quebec, then in the world.
To check out what medias have been saying about our project, check this out. Thanks to all the journalists who helped us fight female body censorship online.
Who's behind all those behinds ?
We are two female artists from Montreal, a city in the french part of Canada. Our names are Emilie Mercier, photographer, and Frederique Marseille, artistic director and manager of the project.
We have been best friends since our teenage years and we have always shared the same sensibility for art, light, people and friendship. We have been doing the 1001Fesses Project since 2014 and it is still going on !
We do art because we can’t keep ourselves from doing it. Art is not something we chose to do, it’s something you need. Emilie needs photography and light, Frederique needs people and expression. Art is just a way to canalize those needs for communication, creation and resonance.
How did everything started ?
We have been best friends since we were 12 years old and growing up together was quite an adventure. We have seen our bodies change from childhood to adulthood and this intimacy in our friendship made us think: why not collect pictures of all kinds of bums ? Maybe we would discover how crazy it is to hate our own bodies and simply see how unique each and every woman is. And, this way, start loving ourselves a little bit better.
The butt seems to be the body part women hate the most, and we still don’t understand why since it’s so soft, sensual and beautiful. Also, photographing butts helps the concept of anonymous bodies since they are always pictured from the back, which brings poetic aesthetic and mystery. One last thing, butts are funny! It’s not as agressive as a full frontal picture or other female parts that are obviously sexual, the goal was to desexualize the female body and just show it’s authenticity outside of a sexual aspect.