FLORA

Flora is a photographic and surrealist video series that reimagines the metaphor of women as flowers through the lens of BIPOC femininity. Centered on three women of color — Shina Novalinga (Inuk), Amalia Naranjo (Venezuelan), and Signoline Niyonkuru (Tanzanian-Burundian) — each subject selects a national flower to represent their identity. Rooted in visual sovereignty, the project explores how beauty, cultural memory, and womanhood intersect with histories of objectification, diaspora, and resilience. Inspired by still life, Flora frames the body not as something to be consumed, but as a living archive — arranged, resistant, and blooming with complexity.

"Flora is a multidisciplinary visual project that reclaims and reframes the long-standing metaphor

of women as flowers. Historically, this comparison has reduced women to fragile, ornamental figures admired through the male gaze. In Flora, the flower

becomes a site of resistance, authorship, and re-birth. Each woman is both the subject and the sto-ryteller, embodying a beauty rooted not in delica-cy, but in resilience, memory, and self-possession.

Growing up, I rarely saw women who looked like me portrayed as beautiful. Through this work, I create the images I once searched for: women of color not as muses, but as mirrors; not as decoration, but as presence. Flora becomes a garden of reclamation, where femininity is power, softness is defiance, and beauty is redefined from within."

- Isabella Maldonado

DIRECTOR: ISABELLA MALDONADO - @isa.maldo

PHOTOGRAPHER: CAMILO LUNA - @caloid

VIDEOGRAPHER: ALVARO GOMEZ - @unoaluno

1st AD: SOFIA BETANCOURT AMOR - @sba_tales

BTS VIDEO: ELLIE CHARETTE - @ellie.chrtt

BTS PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURENCE DYOTTE - @photopium_

BTS SOCIAL MEDIA; MARTINA VELEZ PEREZ - @martina_ypp

GAFFER: MATHILE GIRARD - @math_girard12

PROD DESIGNER: JULIE KRITER - @juliekriter

SET DESIGNER: HANA CHIPMAN - @_hanaaa

ART ASSISTANT: MURAM IDRIS - @muram.i

STYLIST: JULIE KRITER - @juliekriter

MUA: ANDREA MINA - @andreaisamua

HAIR: KATINA SOFIA DALEY - @k.s.dhair

PA: JOSHUA J. FREDERIC - @joshuajfrederic

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: BASTIAN ORELLANA-LAURI - @bastian_orl

MODELS:

SHINA NOVA - @shinanova

AMALIA NARANJO - @naranjaaass

SIGNOLINE NIYONKURU - @signoline_niyonkuru

DRESS SUPPLIED BY : ROSALIE PAQUETTE

@roserosalierose_design

DRESS SUPPLIED BY: LEON - @le08n