Transcription of video:

My name is Shanti Des Four, I'm an artist living and working here in the Northern Rivers. This series is called "By Nature A Woman Is Ashamed". It's based on the supposed words of the guru of the religion that I was raised in. The full statement according to the teachers that told it to me when I was a little girl is "by nature a woman is ashamed to be seen undressed, she should be covered so that even the sun cannot see her"

So I chose to use the camera for this body of work because the camera is supposed to tell the truth and when I reflect on these teachings of my early childhood my mind fills with a kind of fog.

I was raised on the fringes of a religion that essentially considered me as a woman a threat. I was taught that women were unfit for spiritual life and that really our only hope was to become men in our next life and we could start our transcendence from from that point and then the next question is how do we reincarnate as men.

The answer being we behave ourselves. We were taught to live our lives with men's spiritual advancement in mind. We were taught to cover our bodies and disguise our female form and this was to prevent devout men from being tempted from their holy path.

So in this series of self-portraits I'm standing in a black room draped in fabrics, reminiscent of the the costumes of my childhood and I'm performing a half-forgotten ritual by memory and as I make my offering to a god who apparently takes issue with the body that he gave me, my form dissolves in the photograph as though it's apologetic and as I dissolve I wonder how these early teachings and beliefs have shaped who I've become.