She has died. She was born and has been reborn. She has transformed herself into this being who is forever learning and unlearning, growing and changing.

A cloudy Cape Town, captured on film. The mood and feeling encapsulates the story of her.

This is she, Mishal, with her inherent beauty, intimate moments, movements, stillness, and most significantly, the one that holds her own gaze.

Greek mythology boasts that Venus was birthed out of an endless black night, which in this case, contemporaneously reflects the Zimbabwean diaspora and law—an unending law of being. That of an LGBTQ person and the layers that come with home.

Home is where the fundamentals of life are shaped and engraved in one’s being. Home is where one starts to form their identity. We romanticise looking outwardly. We are infatuated with it since it makes living and existing through hard truths much easier. We are lucid in our fantasy that is far removed from reality.

Here she exists.

A beauty that transcends time.

Past, present, and future—all is undetermined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mikhailia Petersen is an independent, multi-faceted South African creative with skills in the fields of styling, creative direction, and stills production. She cultivates layered projects and work which is narrative-based, thematic, inspired by a documentary approach, and guided by culture and love for people. She gravitates towards the emotive, harnessing elements of history, colour, and the lived archive of those who surround her and the individuals she works with and shoots.