Noela Roibås LOVE AFTER THE QUAKE

When Spanish-born, London-based photographer Noela Roibás visited Nepal in early 2017, she was struck by the number of young couples she noticed. In Nepal, traditional practices still reign: arranged marriages, “chhaupadi”—a practice where women are banned from their homes during menstruation—and the general treatment of women as the property of men from birth.

“Women and girls have little to no access to education and are denied control of their bodies, healthcare choices and ultimately, their lives,” she says. “They have little opportunity to fight for anything but their own lives.”

She started interviewing and making portraits of couples to learn more about this divergence from traditional cultural norms. Among the couples she met were a woman named Maya and her boyfriend, in a park where “young couples go to cuddle privately.”

Training her lens on Maya, whom she befriended and lived with during her month in the country, “Love After the Quake,” became Roibás’ poetic homage to a new generation of feminism that’s bubbling just below the surface in the wake of a country still recovering from the devastating earthquake of 2015.

Through her quiet and intimate photographs, Roibás hopes to tell a more hopeful story about Nepal’s future: “There are many educated women there, fighting for their independence and rights—I believe it's necessary to know that and support them.”

She says she was lucky to witness the culture from the inside and to see that “women are really done with patriarchy and are fighting for their rights and freedom.”

—Lindsay Comstock

Photos © Noela Roibás noelaroibas.com