Damsel Elysium is a visual and sound artist, composer and tree whisperer based in London. They craft improvisational compositions using double bass and violin that revolve around allowing nature to speak and finding new ways to create and consume sound in a performance setting. Elysium is reactive to the environment and uses photography, film, fine art, performative art, movement and sculpture to unify their abstract ideas. Their goal is to bring back affinity with the outer world and to engulf the environment with a subconscious ocean of sound and texture.

Elysium also finds joy in embodying art by becoming characters of ambiguous, eccentric nature. In this photo series, they choose garments from Central Saint Martins designers Ming Lim and Amber Healey and artist/designer Rabbit Baby to paint a story about becoming one with everything and being the most fruitful you can be. Big dresses and extended shapes bring Elysium both comfort and power as they fly away into stormy winds yet remain completely protected.

“Every part of me, that I like and dislike, are hidden, just for me,” Elysium says. “Like a blanket providing comfort, practicality, protection, warmth, cool and peace, I find my femininity in being underneath layers. I find my masculinity too. Authority comes from the space that I take up with the vast skirts, but also the gentle submissiveness of the falling fabrics like petals of a flower.”

It was important for Elysium and the photographer Ivory Campbell to set the scene in nature, reflecting the way in which they works and feels the most authentic. “Nature allows me to exist however I feel is right, it reminds me that we are ever-changing and hold so much power within ourselves and the outer world. Everything is one."