The Bathroom di AnaHell: un progetto fotografico sulla famiglia e lo spazio domestico
At INSIGHT Foto Festival, you present your new project The Bathroom, a personal and intimate work that reflects on family, vulnerability, and domestic space.
How did your personal experience influence the decision to set such an intimate project like The Bathroom in a domestic space?
A.H.:I was initially drawn to the bathroom for its aesthetics—it felt quite theatrical, like a ready-made stage. The tiled walls, which are so typical in Spain, gave the space a strong visual identity that felt familiar and symbolic. Before The Bathroom, I had been photographing my family for years, especially my sisters as they moved through adolescence. Back then, the space itself wasn’t a focus as it was more focused on the individuals themselves. But when I began this series, the bathroom gradually became its own character.
Growing up in a large family, with ten people and only two bathrooms, the bathroom was often the most sought-after room. It was a place of overlapping routines. As we grew older and the need for privacy became more important, the bathroom still remained a shared and negotiated space. I was interested in that contradiction—how a place associated with vulnerability and solitude could also be communal and exposed.
Although the work is rooted in personal experience, it’s not strictly documentary. The bathroom is often used as a kind of set where reality and imagination play with each other. My family often looks directly at the camera, acknowledging me behind it and although I never appear in the images, my invisible presence is felt.
How did you maintain a balance between irony and vulnerability in portraying your family?
A.H.:I don’t really see this work as ironic—at least not in the detached or critical sense. To me, it’s playful – sometimes strange or humorous – but always grounded in closeness and trust. The only reason I can photograph my family in this way is because of how open we are with one another. Even in moments that are vulnerable or exposed, there’s no shame and that openness creates space to play.
Even though I’m the one behind the camera, the images are collaborative. My family isn’t just being observed—they’re performing, sometimes subtly, sometimes not. There are layers to each person, and I think the series reflects that—people slipping between versions of themselves, between sincerity and performance. That’s where the balance comes from: a mix of honesty and a kind of quiet role-play.
The bathroom is often considered a private and solitary space, yet in your work it becomes collective. What does this say, in your opinion, about the concept of privacy today?
A.H.:That’s an interesting question—I hadn’t really thought about the work in terms of privacy on a broader social level when I was making it. My focus was more personal: on my family and this often overlooked space in the home that, in our case, was not always that private. It was a space we all had to share, and that created its own dynamic—a mix of routine and closeness that I wanted to explore.
But looking at it now, I do think the project reflects something about how we experience privacy today. We’re constantly aware of being seen—by others and by ourselves through technological devices, even when we’re alone. There’s a kind of performance that emerges from that constant gaze. In the photos, that awareness is present too. The bathroom, while traditionally private, becomes a stage. And maybe that tension—between being exposed and being at ease—says something about how blurred the line between private and public life has become.
What role does time play in this work, considering it is a series built over the course of several years?
A.H.:I’m very interested in how time is reflected through photography, and it plays a significant role in this project. The bathroom remains a constant, largely unchanged year after year, while my family is slowly evolving. It’s interesting how, although change happens so gradually, it becomes much more noticeable when it unfolds in the same space over time. For me, photographing my family is a lifelong project, and I think that, when everything comes together, time will ultimately be one of the most important elements of this ongoing work.
How has your relationship with photography changed after working on such a deeply personal project?
A.H.:I don’t think this project itself has necessarily changed my relationship with photography, but I think that when looking back at work that has been photographed over a period of time, you can begin to see a shift in yourself and in what interests you in an image or a project. What I notice in my own work is that in the beginning, it was very focused on highly staged, surreal imagery with a strong performative element. Over time, I’ve found myself drawn to more subtle, intimate moments. And although I still love the surreal, I’ve started to pay more attention to things that I once thought were boring or uninteresting. It’s made me more open to finding meaning in quieter, simpler moments that I might have overlooked before.
Another interesting part of photographing my family is that it’s become a kind of ritual—something we do together when I visit. Over time, this shared activity has added another layer to our relationship, one that keeps evolving as we all continue to change.
