The Freedom Part

Pip Hicken in a photoseries by Rachel Mia Fogarty called The Celestial Women—blue wig, pink glasses, completely topless, no hesitation about any of it. She’s a musician in Melbourne, makes art, makes work with other people on projects that don’t need anyone’s approval to exist.

That’s what I’m looking at when I see the photo. Not the colors or the nudity, but what it shows about how to actually work. She and Rachel decided to shoot this. No brief, no consensus, no one checking whether it was risky or wrong. Two people making something that only needs to justify itself by existing.

That’s the thing about Australia that keeps pulling at me. I know it’s probably a fantasy, the idea of a place where people work that way. But this photoshoot doesn’t feel like a fantasy. It feels like a working method that actually functions somewhere.

Melbourne, maybe. Or just Pip. I don’t know. But I’ve been staring at this image for weeks and I can’t stop thinking about the freedom in it—not as a concept, but as a practical way to spend your time with another person, making something neither of you will apologize for.