Photographer activist Bibi Cornejo Borthwick by Vince Patti

Two words pop up in most narratives around the photography of Bibi Cornejo Borthwick: ‘intimate’ and ‘revealing’. Borthwick doesn’t shoot digital, preferring film. Her visual lens is not one of perfection. A quick survey of the Brooklyn-based daughter of fashion designer Maria Cornejo and photographer Mark Borthwick creates a defining image, one that resonates deeply with AOC.

Borthwick’s fashion photography career has moved into high gear in recent months. In the last six months, she’s shot three major editorials for Vogue US — including ‘Personal Best’ for the February 2019 issue, Victoria Beckham for Vogue Australia’s November issue and ‘Coolest Stales’ for WSJ Magazine’s December/January issue.

The activist appeared on the new Dazed 100 list. What got our attention is the Dazed reference to her Bellies project, cofounded with NBA player Wilson Chandler, the unisex sneakers for kids help America’s kids. For every pair of shoes sold, Bellies “feeds a belly”, working to nourish inner city areas while educating communities on the importance of nutrition in a bid to eliminate child hunger in America.

In 2015, Borthwick was found at an event in Manhattan’s Great Jones Space, committed to raising $25,000 with co-host model Mary Kwock. Artists including herself donated works to raise money Doctors Without Borders, and their work fighting the Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria.

To fast-forward, just this week Cameroon forced “several thousand” refugees back to Nigeria, into the hands of Boko Haram. Global alarm bells rang, along with appeals from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi. Cameroon has 370,000 refugees, about 100,00 of them Nigerians according to the UNHCR, writes The Guardian. Earlier in January, more than 9,000 people fled into Cameroon after an attack on a military base and aid buildings in the town of Rann in north-east Nigeria’s Borno state.

The young photographer has a grasp on the complexities of life, preferring to live in the ‘real’ world and not the artifice of digital photography. I suspect that ‘flawless’ is not a word in her vocab, as neither models nor life is flawless.

Interviewed in Another Magazine, Borthwick said: “"I have realised that the things I want in my life, they come through travel and experiences. It’s not about having a very contained life in one place."

We shave the young photographer’s most recent work.

Bibi Cornejo Borthwick

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