Christina Ramirez has been visually documenting rage for a year now. She describes her work, “the rage project,” as giving “women and AFAB (assigned female at birth) folk a place to safely and fully express their anger so that more of us are encouraged to do the same.”
Ramirez, who was raised in Chicago, holds two undergraduate degrees and a Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. She’s been in Cleveland since 2015. In 2019, she became ill while working as a speech-language pathologist and eventually had to stop working due to her medical condition. “The rage came from the helplessness; if the triggers don’t stop, the condition persists,” Ramirez said.
Other personal challenges fired her own rage and anger and left her without a place to fully vent those feelings. “There wasn’t anywhere for it to go,” Ramirez continued.
When the COVID lockdown began she began searching for a creative outlet that didn’t involve being around throngs of other people. While she had experience with shooting and developing film, she bought a new digital camera and began taking photographs, learning the art and craft of photography on her own.
In talking with her friends and sharing her frustrations with her personal battles, “it became apparent that there was no place for women to put their rage. It was obvious that it wasn’t allowed, wasn’t accepted,” Ramirez said.
“Women’s emotions are still being dismissed as ‘crazy’ no matter how justified,” said theatremaker Carrie Williams. “Places and people that encourage you to uncensor yourself are precious and necessary.”
She photographed a friend first, telling her to simply talk to the camera while Ramirez documented what happened, which began with tears and through various emotions as they moved throughout the garden. Her open, supportive style includes interacting and listening to the subject while guiding and challenging them to trust her and open up. This can be difficult for many women, as the locations Ramirez selects for her shoots are public (though typically sparsely populated). One popular location is Huntington Beach, where Ramirez used to lifeguard. The beach is often busy with families in warm months, but in the off months provides a sparse, stark, open canvas for emotions.
The project’s photos are impressive: raw, unvarnished, vulnerable, and honest. To view them may stir your own feelings of rage, or of awe to see the bravery on display. By using public, “3rd spaces” as venues, she aims to “bring the rage out into the open.”
Everyone doesn’t explain why they are there, why their rage exists. “Some people just need a space where they’re allowed to be mad,” she explains. “There’s personal rage, rage about relationships, about work, parents, spouses, past partners.” A lot of subjects talk about medical trauma, whether personally or as caregivers to others, which Ramirez can understand on both a personal and professional level.
Ramirez advises her subjects to wear all black or dark colors so their clothing doesn’t pull focus from the images being created. Shooting at high speed, she might take 1,500 images in a single session. Still pictures shared on Instagram (the.rage.project) are black and white, followed by both black and white and color images on Instagram Reels, set to music she chooses. “I think it’s important to go from the black and white to color so you can see the evolution of what people go through—an animatic, an evolution.”
“Being in the medical field, we are taught to suppress our instincts, what we know will help us survive and what will keep people safe,” Ramirez said. “Every single person who engages (with the project) says ‘I’ve never talked about this.’ For so many of us, we don’t even think rage can be addressed in therapy.” She emphasizes that the photo shoot is not a substitute for therapy, though some find it therapeutic. “It’s not my job to treat,” she says, “It’s my space to feel safe to express and to have the reality of their emotion documented.”
“Christina is doing a wonderful thing creating a safe space for women to feel their rage,” said Hannah Storch, a local performer. “So many of us are taught that we are too angry, too loud, too bossy, too much. Having that space to fully feel all of those pent-up emotions was freeing, exhausting, cathartic. By the end, I felt so much lighter.”
It’s important to Ramirez that consent is emphasized and understood before, during, and after the process. She makes it clear that consent can be revoked at any time, and she works with a red/green/yellow stoplight-type system so the subject can continually convey their level of comfort in beginning, moving through, and finishing the photo shoot. Even after the pictures are complete and posted, she’ll take them down if the subject asks. “Safety and consent are at the forefront,” said Ramirez, “because (women) haven’t been afforded safety or space where we could safely and fully express anger for fear of repercussion. Without safety and consent, this goes nowhere.”
Each photo set, shared on the rage project’s Instagram account (and on Facebook via Instagram Reels) as well as on her personal Instagram (christina_sophia_shoots) ends with the caption, “Our rage and its expression are necessary.”
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Cleveland Artist's 'the rage project' Showcases Women's Expression, Emotion
“It became apparent that there was no place for women to put their rage. It was obvious that it wasn’t allowed, wasn’t accepted,” says photographer Christina Ramirez
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