Beauty Marks explores athletes’ choices to push their bodies through pain. Women and non-binary athletes in high-intensity sports constantly put their bodies at risk, sacrificing their skin and bones out of passion. Athletes play through discomfort all the time, constantly testing their limits. In doing so, they find what they are capable of. Athletes define themselves through their bodies, and their bodies in turn define their performance. Endurance is embedded in the culture of sports, and physical evidence of pain is proof of endurance. For these athletes, injury is a physical display of devotion.
Putting their bodies at risk is part of being an athlete, but in doing so, they put what is expected of them on the line. Choosing a sport that pushes these boundaries and loving it beyond expectations is how so many reclaim autonomy over their bodies.
Nina Calves 