Mariana Pimiento
Seventeen-year-old Mariana Pimiento is the creative mind behind Project Essere, a social media project and women’s empowerment movement focused on the concept of self-acceptance and love. Photo courtesy of Mariana Pimiento.
On a night when other girls her age were more likely to be surfing the Internet for One Direction gossip, Colombian-born Mariana Pimiento was watching Charlie Hebdo.
“I was in shock that I had just witnessed in 15 seconds someone’s entire life being taken away,” said Pimiento, a junior at VHHS.
She’d originally turned to the web for inspiration on what would become her next photography project. A year prior, Pimiento had been on the eve of launching Project Bare, a photographic celebration of natural beauty, when her computer crashed, taking the entire project along with it.
It took one year and much prodding from friends and family to revive Project Bare before Pimiento was ready. But a reboot of the old idea didn’t appeal to her.
“[After watching the Charlie Hebdo video footage], this project idea came to me,” she said. “Instead of celebrating the physical beauty of people, why don’t we celebrate their entire existence?”
After researching numerous names, careful to steer away of anything clichéd, Pimiento said she came across the word “essere,” which in Italian means “to be or to exist.” And Project Essere was born.
At its core, Project Essere is an invitation to women of all ages and backgrounds to fully embrace all that they are, unconditionally.
At her website, Pimiento invites readers to submit what they vow “to be” through one of three ways — Instagram posts including the hashtag #vowtobe and submitting an individual interview, either via a contact form on the website or, like the 29 “Essere Girls” in her video, through a video response to questions ranging from, “Why do you love yourself?” to “What do you think being alive means?”
Pimiento’s goal for the project is to change how normalized negative self-talk has become.
“A key point to this project is self-love,” Pimiento said. “It is the normal thing now to be self-conscious and to be negative about not only your body but about every part of you. This is appalling. It should be the normal thing to love yourself and love yourself completely. You are worthy of life, care, and most importantly your own love.”
To help spread that message, Pimiento shared the Project Essere idea on social media, and quickly amassed a list of 45 fellow students who wanted to participate. That original list was culled down to 29, given Pimiento’s limited days to shoot.
Filming wrapped in February, and in the weeks since, Pimiento has seen Project Essere go international.
“My family has been very involved in promoting it back home,” she said, adding that she’d love for it to go worldwide. “That is one of the things about this project — it can apply to anyone. No matter what your culture, religion or race, we want to celebrate you!”
And as wise beyond her years as Pimiento may seem, she readily admitted that Project Essere taught its creator more than a few lessons in the process.
“I was definitely scared of rejection from my peers,” she said, adding that of those she asked to participate (many were volunteers), she deliberately did not ask a few for fear of being turned down. “That’s something I personally have to work on — not being afraid of rejection.”
Pimiento added that she also experienced a twinge of guilt as she came to know the women who did participate.
“I got to meet so many amazing ladies,” she said. “These are people who I’ve gone to school with my whole life and never said a word to; I am guilty of having made pre-judgements about people at school, but working on this completely changed my perspective on those people.”
As Project Essere made the rounds with other students and faculty, Pimiento said the overwhelmingly positive response taught her that it had changed the perspective of others too.
“It’s scary to release something so personal and so different and be put on the spot so that others may judge you,” she said. “I did not expect such a good response. We showed it at the school, and many people (and teachers) came up to me to express their love for the project and their gratitude. It is very rewarding when people appreciate the hard work and effort, especially in high school.”
To see the results of Project Essere and learn more, visit projectessere.com/joinessere.
