The system we live in was never built for the four cycles women go through

Arale Reartes for Lampoon MECCANO – four hormonal phases as mechanical states, between self-portrait and still life, against a model of linear productivity

Mechanics of a female body – Arale Reartes for Lampoon MECCANO

Arale Reartes shares:

The system we live in was never built for the four cycles women go through. It is not part of formal education. It is learned through experience. While productivity models require continuity, the female body operates through variation. It shifts, slows, sharpens, softens. It follows a cyclical structure.

Mechanics of a Female Body reads these hormonal phases as mechanical states. Not as irregularities, but as structural conditions. Each phase is defined as part of a system that sustains the whole.

Each phase is translated into two images, presented in the special pages of Lampoon MECCANO. A self-portrait registers the internal condition of the body. A still life reflects external changes in clarity, energy, and focus. The pairing creates a correspondence between perception and environment.

The project situates the cyclical body within a work-oriented framework. The contrast emerges. Economic systems are built on standardization and continuity. The body does not comply. It operates through fluctuation. These rhythms are not inefficiencies. They are functional. They define a form of intelligence embedded in the body’s structure.

Credits

Photography: Arale Reartes
Styling: Jèss Monterde
Movement direction: Leonardo D’Aquino
Set design: María José Gil González
Photography assistant: Naia Zarraonandia Garcia
Set design assistant: Anna Colomer Berdún
Furniture: Polop Store & El Norado Archive
Location: FX Barcelona Film School
Thanks to Jes Levy @MagaliManagement