What does it mean to belong, as a woman, in cultures where womanhood is often perceived as a vulnerability? The Belonging Project explores women’s relationship to themselves after going through an experience that shifted their perception of who they knew themselves to be.  “We feel safest when go inside ourselves and find a home. A place we belong and maybe the only place we really do,” wrote the poet Maya Angelou. 

But to belong is shaped by one’s upbringing, one’s environment, one’s beliefs, and cannot be defined by a single story. This body of work is an encyclopedia of what belonging means to women across the world. 

Starting in Guerreo, Mexico, the project opens with Guadalupe Callejas, a twenty-four-year-old mother who gave birth to her first child at 15. “I belong to my body,” she told me as her two-year-old slept on a knitted hammock outside their home in Playa Ventura, Mexico. “Women are not the same as before,” she continued. “We are valued now.” 

Callejas comes from a beach community where women are known for their strong character and autonomy. While violence against women in Mexico has reached an unprecedented high, being a woman in Playa Ventura comes with pride and authority. The community is run by Emilia Castañeda, a stoic mother of six who was elected head commissioner at the beginning of the year. For her, belonging shifts with the stages of life, like the seasons. “It’s a cycle,” she said. “As a child, I belonged to my family and now, my family belongs to me.” 

For each chapter of the project, the women are asked to journal about the meaning of belonging in their own lives and to share the places and possessions they identify with the most. Through portraiture, video,  the women’s journaling, and my own personal writing, the collaboration becomes a representation of the ways in which we give meaning to our lives.

This time of isolation from the world we previously knew has led us to discover that our greatest desire is not to belong to others but to ourselves. When we find value, comfort and understanding within our own bodies, we shift the way we present ourselves to the world. We become more attuned to the needs of others, less attached to our own insecurities, more forgiving. We welcome in uncertainty for we’ve built a strong inner foundation.

The greatest story we can tell, in the end, is of belonging for when we belong to ourselves, we belong to the world.