FESTIVAL SELECTEE 2025
RITA PUIG-SERRA COSTA
ANATOMY OF AN OYSTER
In ‘Anatomy of an Oyster’ Spanish artist Puig-Serra Costa uses the analogy of the creation of a pearl specifically as a way to understand and expose the many layers of shame that accumulate in connection with abuse. The project serves as a deeply personal reckoning, revealing the sexual abuse the artist endured at the hands of a family member but never spoke of while her mother was alive. She uses photography as a tool to bring visibility to something often hidden within a family and turns her personal trauma into an act of defiance against the shame and guilt that keep experiences like these hidden.
“I strive to fight against the feelings of shame and shyness in order to bring these stories to light and make them visible. For me, the reward is immense. Somehow, turning an experience into a project transforms it into an object – something that exists outside the body and can be placed in the world. This makes it easier to talk about and view from different angles. By materializing experiences into tangible projects, like a book, I can revisit and explore them. This process of turning internal experiences into external, physical forms captivates me the most. In the end, my goal is to delve deep within myself, extract and externalize my experience.”
— Rita Puig-Serra Costa
INTO THE LIGHT
Exposing the pearl within
Project: Anatomy of an Oyster by Rita Puig-Serra Costa
Spanish artist Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s Anatomy of an Oyster is a continuation of her previous work Where Mimosa Bloom and works like a letter – a reflection shared with her late mother. It serves as a deeply personal reckoning, revealing the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of a family member but never spoke of while her mother was alive.
Puig-Serra Costa began working on Anatomy of an Oyster in 2016 and published it as a book seven years later in 2023. The use of photography proved useful in this project, sharing her untold story with her mother posthumously whilst simultaneously creating an internal dialogue for herself and eventually creating a multilayered photobook sensitively exploring a deeply tabooed subject.
Rita Puig-Serra Costa // Anatomy of an Oyster
Bridging past and present
Puig-Serra Costa’s works often begin as photobooks because of her deep appreciation for the narrative capabilities of books. For the artist, it is a useful and creative method to bridge past and present and form a visual narrative for all to see and explore, however painful. Eventually the book also connected her personal narrative with relatives and other survivors of abuse.
The combination of narration and the tactile experience of flipping through a story, hint at the importance of the voice embedded within the pages. The progression of the book to exhibit highlights how Puig-Serra Costa blends narrative structure and visual storytelling. Archival photos help anchor and contextualize her thoughts to a physical time and place, compared to staying within her mind – like a pearl brought into the light from within its closed oyster shell.
Ocean, pearl, and oyster
In Anatomy of an Oyster Puig-Serra Costa uses the analogy of the creation of a pearl specifically as a way to understand and expose the many layers of shame that accumulate in connection with abuse. A pearl begins to form when a foreign element attempts to invade the oyster. Unable to expel it, the oyster gradually envelops the intruding element in the nacre, also known as mother of pearl, and the layers upon layers of nacre then gradually transform it into the pearl.
Puig-Serra Costa was first drawn by the parallels between the oyster’s defense mechanism and coping mechanisms employed by survivors of sexual abuse. In this comparison, the nacre coat that shields the pearl symbolises the stratified memory one must navigate when confronting traumatic moments. The pearl, which contains the hidden story of the oyster, becomes a metaphor for her own lived experience.
“The oyster is a closed thing, inside there is shame, shyness, and guilt. But also you see the ocean. The ocean symbolizes something that I find deeply shameful. The guilt of feeling pleasure when abused. It is super heavy and tough to speak about this. But I think it is important to discuss these experiences. It is essential for de-stigmatizing and for creating a safe space for those who have lived through similar situations.”
Rita Puig-Serra Costa // Anatomy of an Oyster
Reclaiming personal narrative through photography
During the creative process, Puig-Serra Costa had people around her, especially family members, who urged her to stop exploring her own history of abuse. The pressure to remain silent not only reflected the discomfort of discussing painful and intimate topics but also the taboos of familial abuse. Even with the increased discourse around abuse, inter-familial abuse is challenging to speak about and expose.
However, the resistance only motivated her more. Puig-Serra Costa felt a duty to use photography as a tool to bring visibility to something often hidden within a family. In her photography, the artist turns her personal trauma into an act of defiance against the shame and guilt that keep experiences like these hidden. It became a way of externalizing her emotions, exploring them, and reclaiming the narrative.
Connecting with fellow survivors
After the publication of the book, Puig-Serra Costa was met with support. Readers wrote to her, reaching out with their own stories. The unexpected connection with her audience proved powerful in feeling less alone in the pain but also in the effort to continue her work for creating awareness around sexual abuse.
By breaking the silence, Puig-Serra Costa has not only empowered others dealing with similar trauma but also inspired her family to confront their shared feelings of shame and guilt, creating a collective sense of strength, care, and listening. Her work’s candid yet sensitive, personal exploration of trauma and healing through storytelling fosters a unique dialogue about a difficult and delicate topic.
Rita Puig-Serra Costa // Anatomy of an Oyster
INTO THE LIGHT
“The entire project has been about navigating through darkness and bringing light to the forefront. In the beginning, the body was in darkness. But then you have this image which is like finding the light. And so the process was like opening the oyster to reveal the pearl inside symbolizing light. But moreover, the project employs all analogue photography, it’s all medium format. So the process of developing each image is also related to creating light.”
— Rita Puig-Serra Costa
Interview & Text · Gabriella Presnal and Gaitana Jaramillo · Proof & Edit · Hanna Tokaj and Christine Almlund
ARTIST BIO
Rita Puig-Serra Costa (b.1985) works closely with how identity is continuously redefined throughout our life. She explores the essence of human relationships and the influence that love, luck, death or memories have on our self-construction. Her projects are inspired by literature and often begin with imagining the series in a photo book format.
Selected achievements
- – 2024 Les Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards 2024 – Shortlisted for Anatomy of an Oyster.
- – 2024 Solo Exhibition at PhMuseumLab for Anatomy of an Oyster.
- – 2023 Art Photo Bcn Award for Anatomy of an Oyster.
- – 2023 Futures Photography (PhotoEspaña) – Selectee.
- – 2022 Descubrimientos PhotoEspaña – Selectee.
