The Journey
Bold Beauty Project (BBP) is a powerful visual arts exhibition celebrating women with diverse disabilities. Its creative, large-scale photographs, portrayed by award-winning photographers, coupled with the women’s personal stories, create a vivid and intimate portrait of women with disabilities today.
The project began in 2006 as Uncensored Life: Raw Beauty, the brainchild of Shelly Baer, LCSW, disability activist, and Vanessa Silberman, PR. Their goal was to create photo stories of the model/participants that would shatter preconceived notions of beauty. The experience was transformative for Shelly, who has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which she contracted at age three. She was frustrated about not seeing women who looked like her in the media and decided to keep this project going for other disabled women.
In 2015, Shelly invited Eva Ritvo, MD, to help bring her brainchild to a broader audience. The initiative was reimagined as the Bold Beauty Project (BBP) and has since grown into a thriving nonprofit.
In 2021, BBP expanded to include universities and hosted multiple exhibitions with students at the University of Miami, Florida International University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Columbia University, and Yale University.
We have also hosted international shows in Panama City, Panama, and Cape Town, South Africa. Currently, we have been invited to participate by the European Cultural Center at the Palazzo Mora Personal Structures- Confluences Exhibition alongside the Venice Biennale from May 9 to November 22, 2026.
Our replication packages are designed to enable cities worldwide to host their own BBP exhibits. The power of each exhibition lies in its use of local community resources, models, and photographers.
We are developing global “communities of bold beauties” and hope they will serve as role models for all those who may be feeling isolated, excluded, or marginalized because of a disability.
OUR MISSION: As an innovative visual arts exhibition, Bold Beauty Project seeks to create social change by utilizing art at the intersection of beauty and disability.
SEE NEWS & PRESS.Media and Inquiries: Patrice Samara