Berlin-based photographer Andrea Galad is currently working on a new project and looking for people to jump in. “The Scorpionic Beauty“ is a photographic book inspired by the 8th astrological house; this house or field is ruled by the star sign Scorpio, whence the title of the book.
“Having in my birth chart four planets placed in this gloomy house, my life has always been punctuated by milestone events connected to the topics of this field: death and regeneration, way too many losses, a deep sexual pulse, and an innate taste for the macabre.
I remember being a child with a deep attraction for the colour black or feeling extremely comfortable and safe walking through a graveyard and having a deep, respectful curiosity for death. I remember myself in kindergarten always choosing the black seat on a multicolour carousel or finding a dead sparrow as the most beautiful and poetic thing ever seen. This passion for darkness, for monsters and the occult, had been sadly a double-edged sword, giving me a profound consciousness of myself and life, with a heavy sense of alienation and solitude. The 8th house is a problematic field, full of difficulties and tests, it is an index of many spiritual deaths and when it gets full of planets, in a birth chart, it creates individuals with a very deep sense of life, extremely perceptive and with a twisted way of living. Astrology gave a meaning to this peculiar attraction I always had, telling me how to direct this dark pulse in a safe and creative way.
This book is a collection of all of my artworks, old and new photographs that seep scorpionic energy, therefore deeply erotic and morbid, passionate and raw. Works strictly connected with my metaphysical abyss, a bestiary of classified visions, resulting from my way of perceiving things, always struggling to find a balance between Love and Death, Eros and Tanathos. The book is divided into two big chapters: the first part is about basic astrology, where I explain academically and visually the meaning of the 12-star signs, the 12 houses, the 4 elements and the Planets; for all of these elements I’ve created a character, following the aesthetic of my iconography.
The second part of the book speaks about the main topics related to the 8th house. I imagined this house as a real place, and as setting for this imaginary space I have chosen my favourite place on earth: an abandoned huge aluminium factory in my small hometown in Italy.
Built in 1926, Alumetal has been the main distributor of aluminium in Italy, responsible for 90% of aluminium artefacts produced on Italian soil. Constructed as a small independent town, with secret gardens and waterfalls, its futuristic buildings stand as an example of industrial archaeology. Needless to say that its silent places, its walls dripping memories and its decadent and potent beauty, made me fall in love since the first time I stepped into it. This factory represents perfectly how I imagine the 8th astrological house: an abandoned silent town, like a huge sleeping beast carved with rooms, haunted by memories and ghosts, but beautifully framed by the powerful force of living nature.
This book is meant to inspire people who struggle with difficulties in life, showing how a “natal curse” can be turned into a gift, with the help of art and a continuous investigation inside ourselves: Death and Loss remind us how important and worthy can be a human life; because only when we face fearlessly the mystery of Death we can value Life for real, and find the strength to turn the horrors into Art.
OPEN CALL
We each have a Star sign based on the day we were born- but we also each have an Ascendant, which can be any of the Star signs, and is based on the time of day we were born and the earth latitude. For each representation of each of the 12-star signs, I need to find people whose Star sign is the same as their Ascendant.
The nature and the active part of personality are defined by our Star sign, the ascendant instead, or rising sun, is the star sign that rises at the horizon at the moment of our birth, at the same place where the sun rises in the morning; and the ascendant defines our behaviour, our first reactions and our appearance, like a sort of a cover, or a vessel through which we will move into life. So, to portray the archetype of the star sign I need to find people with the same ascendant as their star sign: Aries ascendant Aries, Taurus ascendant Taurus etc…
Reading birth charts to people in my free time I realized that usually, people with same star sign as the ascendant tend to live and behave following fully the archetype of their sign; for me, it always feels like speaking with the star sign itself…that’s how I had the idea to find people with these rare features to portray faithfully the star signs. To calculate your ascendant, you need to know the time you were born, the town and indeed the day, month and year of your birth. Usually, if you were born close to sunrise, your ascendant will match your star sign; but to be sure you can rely on the internet to calculate it. If your ascendant is the same sign as your star sign, and if you support my research and want to pose as one of the star signs featured in the book, then contact me with an email with all of your data: birthday, birthplace and birth time, I will check everything and get back to you! thescorpionicbeauty@gmail.com
Contact:
Instagram: @andreagalad
