East and Southeast Asian Panorama Open Call: Meet the Grantee Narantsetseg Khuyagaa

You’ve said that your practice explores sexuality and power in relation to womanhood. Could you tell us more about this?

I was brought up by women who were expected to be strong; vulnerability was taboo.

Seeing what that distance from one’s own body and mind did to my mother saddened and angered me. In my work, I try to bring that vulnerability back into view and explore whether it can exist in places built on hardness. As a woman, owning one’s sexuality can feel both vulnerable and powerful. Most of us have been objectified at some point, and we recognise it when it happens to others. I aim to make images where sensuality is cherished, not exploited. Desire, to me, belongs to the subject as much as it does to me; it isn’t something performed just for the camera.

Production matters. I work conversationally with small teams, and consent is ongoing and specific. Knowing and conversing with the women I photograph is crucial; good casting means I don’t project unnecessary fantasies onto my subjects, and they can be themselves. Photography carries power: who is photographed, how, and what is finally shown. I try to use that power with care. Who is in the room, how I direct, and how I light are seemingly small production choices that return power and agency to the person being photographed. The erotic, for me, is not just exposure; it lies in the subject’s gaze, posture, styling, and the way the light sits on their skin. The beauty of female sensuality, sexuality, and sentimentality is something I’ll always cherish and try to uphold. In the end, I’m trying to make pictures where a woman can be vulnerable, complicated, and in charge at the same time, seen as she is to herself, not as a role to be played.