A successful portrait challenges the photographer’s ability to gain their subject’s trust and create a personal relationship during a short period of time in situations that would make anyone clam up – like having a camera stuck in your face.

Now imagine trying to convince a group of Afro-Brazilian women from Bahia to pose for portraits wearing “meat couture” – clothes fashioned from the placenta of cows! Somehow the brilliant Pilar Yolacan managed to do this amongst other tasks like shopping for the meat, sewing the “clothes” and setting up the shoots.

This photographic project is titled “Maria” which debuted last year as a follow-up to a previous series of photographs of women wearing garments made from offal. The whole concept comes together in a visually arresting way that uses photography to address long-time issues of the master & slave relationship.

Read a Style.com interview with Pinar Yolacan to discover how she orchestrated the production of this unique body of photography artwork.

See this series and more photography by Pinar Yolacan at the Rivington Arms website.