Laura Rocha
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Aug 12
- 6 min read
Laura Rocha works with fashion, photography, and visual direction in a way that connects emotion, identity, and social awareness. Her projects explore themes like resistance, cultural memory, and the expressive power of the body. She often brings together references from different times or movements, like in “BLADEKURO”, where female samurai history and 90s grunge come together in one look. Her working process is intuitive and physical, shaped by both personal memory and careful research. Materials are chosen not only for their visual quality but also for what they represent. Her work often holds contrast, showing both sensitivity and strength in the same image.
Q: You’ve been experimenting with materials since childhood. What do you think stayed with you from that time?
A: On a psychological level, I think the most striking was the confidence to explore new materials, the desire to learn different techniques, and a curiosity that still guides my creative process today. On a sensory level, I recognise that this freedom had a lot to do with the way I was raised. From an early age, my mother gave me a kind of silent freedom; she showed me, in a natural way, that there were no boundaries between art and the individual. That had a huge impact on how I see the act of creating: as something deeply connected to who I am.
The most important thing that phase gave me was, without a doubt, the space to cultivate creativity in its purest form, without filters. I always felt I could express myself through materials, whether on a canvas or on my own body, and that gave me a very strong emotional connection to making. That freedom was essential for me to become a curious and confident person in this field. To this day, I continue to work with many of the materials that surrounded me in childhood. In my path as a designer, this connection manifests itself in a very experimental approach, where I like to combine textiles with non-conventional elements. It all comes from that initial impulse of creating and exploring as a way of being.
Q: In “BLADEKURO”, you bring together Onna-Bugeishas and 90s grunge. Why did the mix feel right to you?
A: Although these are historically distant and culturally distinct periods, I recognise a very unique connection between them. What captivates me is the way in which each, within its own context, challenged established norms. Both represent deeply disruptive, almost provocative movements that confronted the social structures of their time. In the case of the Onna-Bugeisha, there is a transformative force that rises against a deeply rooted patriarchal system in feudal Japan.
These women were not only resilient presences, but also agents of redefinition, reshaping their place in the world.
The grunge movement, though rooted in a completely different reality, also emerges through rupture—a conscious refusal of conventions in fashion, music, aesthetics, and even dominant social attitudes. In both cases, there is an urgent need to assert a raw, authentic, and often uncomfortable individuality.
It is in this thread of resistance and in the desire to subvert what is socially imposed as “acceptable” that I find their point of convergence. These are references that, although distant in time, share a common subversive energy. And it is precisely that energy I seek to channel, in a deeply personal and intimate way, throughout my creative process.
Q: The piece holds both softness and anger. How did you find the balance between those feelings?
A: I always felt that both emotions coexisted in a harmonious way. The piece carries within it a duality between softness and anger.
Although seemingly opposite, they make complete sense when placed side by side. Anger reveals itself in the violently made burn marks, in the weight of the fabric, and in the aggression of the contrasts. Softness, on the other hand, emerges through the fluidity of the forms and the choice of the composition of fabric. I deliberately chose raw cotton, a textile that expresses purity in its most honest state.
The balance came the moment I understood that one emotion only gains true depth when placed in relation to its opposite—like light and shadow, where the interdependence between the two becomes evident, as neither can stand out without the other. There was no intention of hiding this conflict, quite the opposite—I wanted to make it visible. The piece exposes this tension, revealing softness in its most vulnerable state and anger at its most intense.
It does not aim to resolve it, but rather to sustain it. And it is precisely there that its strength lies—in the ability to inhabit the space between extremes, without cancelling either.
Q: “Untitled” came from a sense of discomfort. What was going through your mind while making it?
A: In the creation of “Untitled”, discomfort was not the focus, but rather the raising of awareness around the fight against racism—a celebration of the oppressed and a call for the awareness of the oppressor.
Throughout the process, emotions such as pride and healing emerged. The recognition of systems of oppression gave way not to pain, but to celebration. The piece was born from that space where memory and affirmation coexist—a place of reverence for racialized bodies. Instead of seeking rupture, we sought recognition. Every gesture was shaped with sensitivity and intention, as a tribute that touches the past and reclaims it with dignity. The tension was transformed into symbolic strength and pride.
“Untitled” became a place of quiet celebration—of non-normative beauty, of strength, and of culture. It is not a piece that denounces, but one that gently affirms the existence of those who were once denied.
At its core, it is an attempt to rewrite the past. To transform presence into awareness. A symbolic body where resistance becomes pride, and transformation begins through the radical act of celebration.
Q: “The fusion between romanticism and contemporary pt2” feels emotional and structured at once. How did that combination come about?
A: The combination emerged from the intention to place two distinct ways of relating to the world in dialogue—one guided by emotion and creative impulse, the other driven by analysis and awareness. Rather than choosing between poetic freedom or critical rigor, it was in the tension between the two that I found power.
Two distinct yet complementary themes were chosen: Romanticism and Contemporaneity, where one operates as the antithesis of the other—on one side, spontaneous feeling; on the other, structured thought. The dialectic between these forces revealed itself not as conflict, but as a possibility for harmony and attentive listening.
This coexistence allowed for the expression of different dimensions of experience: creative and emotional vulnerability alongside a critical consciousness attuned to the present moment.
Emotion was not treated as excess, but as a legitimate form of language. Structure, in turn, served as a tool for reflection and organization.
The result is a coherent and deliberate manifestation of this duality—a composition where intuition and reason do not cancel each other out, but instead amplify one another. An exercise in coexistence, not synthesis, where feeling and structuring become simultaneous gestures of creation.
Q: Identity and personal history seem to be part of your work. Do you think about them when creating, or do they show up on their own?
A: I see creation as an extension of my soul. There was never a deliberate search for an identity, it simply revealed and deepened itself over time. The creative process is profoundly intuitive, guided by a kind of trance in which stimuli are freely explored as they emerge. More than a personal narrative, it is what surrounds me—the lived and observed contexts—that serve as starting points.
Specific elements are identified before the creation begins, but they are not bound to a fixed structure. Instead, they are held in suspension, allowed to drift between thought and sensation throughout the process, until, often unconsciously, they lead to a conclusion. The final result—both in process and in form—arises from this spontaneous introspection, from a state of deep presence, where feeling entirely guides making. Creation, then, is not a product of control, but of openness—a meeting point between reason and intuition, made manifest in the gesture.