Whatever we perceive as beautiful tends fills some kind of inner void, some dark corner of the self that is full of whispers we repeat to ourselves like, “I’m too short” or “My nose is too big” or “My middle toe is too long.” Perhaps that’s why pretty things sparkle: to shine some light into that shadowy place. Or maybe pretty things shine in order to distract us from the real beauty behind all that loathsome self-generated innuendo.
From San Juan Puerto Rico’s artist collective Ladoscuro, comes a quick flick starring none other than April Carrion, directed and edited by Payola Isabel. A beloved contestant on the sixth season of RuPauls’s Drag Race and a contributor to the most excellent feature documentary Mala Mala about the variety of gender identities on the island, Carrion knows a thing or two about beauty. The camera lingers on Carrion covered in glitter and eventually reveals that beauty is born out of and emanates from that shadowy place of which we should feel no shame. At just over a minute, the hypnotizing Carrion and her cohorts manage to get the point across in this glossy and yet sparse collection of images. Take a look.