‘A Poetic Lesson on Black Anatomy’ is a love letter to the Black body, beautifully penned by Denisse Ariana Pérez. The film is presented as a glossary of terms, elegantly accompanied by a reading narrated by Makeda Carayol and an original jazz score by Reuben James. A powerful and sensorial experience, we’re taken on a self-affirming journey of rediscovery to challenge our understanding of each part of the Black bodies explored. The Dominican-born, Barcelona-based photographer and writer has here collaborated with cinematographer Àlvar Riu Dolz, the two ensuring that this intentional work is rich in colour, tone and nuance.

The film pulls on minimalist aesthetics and anatomical inspirations to present each figure in a sculptural, celestial way. We’re invited to examine and appreciate the naked body’s shape, shade and form and in doing so, shake off historical gazes and stereotypes in favour of something altogether more transformative. Made at a time when Pérez was experiencing a loss of inspiration and a turbulent time in her life, the film is a triumphant win that redefines Blackness and proudly parades its boundless possibilities.

Eager to find out more, we spoke to Pérez about her experience of making the film.

What inspired you to make this film?

It came from having the need as a writer to redefine things and give them new descriptions. I wanted to do this with this notion of Blackness and the Black body and to speak of its vastness. For a long time, it felt like a subject I couldn’t talk about, so this was in a way giving myself permission. Last year, I started going to therapy and dealing childhood wounds and I think in that process this subject came about. A lot of my photographic work has been a love letter to the Black body, specifically the Black male body and Black masculinity. So, this felt like an evolution and when there’s wording in it, you’re really cementing a statement.

Why was it important for you to share this anatomical way of looking at Black bodies?

These are places where I find a lot of beauty. They might not normally be perceived that way but I do and that’s what’s I want to spread, that admiration and beauty and love.

You say that you were going through a lot at this time. Did the film help you process?

Last year was probably the hardest year of my life emotionally. I felt quite lost in my creativity and it was the first time that I had felt a deep lack of inspiration. I questioned what I was doing, where I was going, whether I should continue to photograph and many things happened in my personal life. It felt like one challenge after another. In a way, when I chose to do this film, I was not only giving myself permission to talk about that subject, but I was giving myself permission to create in the middle of turbulence and chaos. So, it’s become my celebration film. Look what I can do when life is pulling me in so many different directions and how I can find myself again.

What made you go for a jazz score to accompany the piece?

I’m a big lover of jazz, I am that person who will go to a jazz bar by themselves. It can be cliché but it works for this because it’s music that has highs and lows and it’s a journey. From celebratory moments to moments of profound vulnerability and pain, then climbing back up again. That is what jazz is, its complex and Blackness is like that. So, I worked with Reuben James who sent me fragments back and forth. He recorded all of it with live instruments and he played all of those instruments. I told him that, for every body part, it’s like the beginning of a new chapter, so they all need to be connected with some undercurrent but each chapter is the opportunity to have a new beginning, to go really high, to go really low.

You end the film with a dedication to Dulce María, tell us about her?

Dulce is my aunt and a very important person in my life. She’s like the mother I never had and she is on my dad’s side, the Black side of my family. I wasn’t raised with her, we met later on and she revolutionised my life. She was the first person to bring to my attention what it meant to be of African descent. I grew up in the Dominican Republic, which is a society where you do the impossible to hide any Blackness in you. Dulce escaped the society that we grew up in very young, just like I did. She went to Cuba and Brazil and that’s where she found community and a sense of Black pride. She was the first person to introduce me to that language and she just opened that door.

Read our interview with Perez about her book, Agua 2021, here