After coming across the phenomenon of body casting, I soon stumbled upon the magic work of Lydia Reeves. Lydia works from her studio in Brighton, UK. Her work focuses on celebrating bodies and aims to rid people of the embarrassment and shame they may have associated with their bodies.
Lydia has struggled with body acceptance from a younger age into adulthood, after going through puberty she felt insecure about her body changing, like many of us this negatively affected Lydia's teenage years. After working on this in latter years, Lydia has learned to accept her body and embrace it. She wanted to share this positivity with others and encourage them to celebrate themselves and their bodies too.
Lydia's goal is to not only change how people see their bodies but how they see themselves as a whole. Taking this aim one step further Lydia embarked on 'My Vulva and I' - a vulva diversity project. The project took place over two years, during this time Lydia cast 200 individual vulvas in order to curate a book where these casts would be showcased along with 100 stories from participants about their own relationship with their vulva.
Lydia wanted to open up a conversation surrounding the standards that are often put on young people that usually affect us as adults. Whether it’s questions around the size of labia, pubic hair, standards created by pornography, sharing sexual experiences or healing your sexuality.
"No-one, ever, educated me on the whole range of vulvas that, in fact, there are. I was left to go through the changes of puberty alone, with porn as my bible"
If you are interested in purchasing the 'My Vulva and I' book click here.
As a body casting artist, Lydia works with women and people with vulvas, including trans and non-binary people to create beautiful pieces. Her most frequent casts include Boobs, Chest, Bums and Pregnant Belly casts. Not only does Lydia offer a wide range of casting options, but these casts can be painted any colour with various finishings like Colourshift, Glitter or hand painted.
Lydia's work empowers people by making her clients feel at one with their body and celebrating something that is so easily taken for granted. Looking through Lydia's online gallery makes me feel truly inspired as its full of smiling, empowered women.
The immense details that Lydia's body casts capture is a way for people to truly appreciate every bump, line and mark on our bodies and how it makes every person so wonderfully unique and different.
Check out Lydia's work
Lydia's Website
Lydia's Instagram
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