Collins calls this novel about a woman who rebounds from a relationship with a merman one of her “favorite books ever.” She explained: “It is a beautiful depiction of addiction, mental health, love and loss – all told through the lens of a woman in love with a merman.” We’re living in such an absurd time,” she said. “We’re all using these filters. We’re all editing our photos in these crazy ways. So it made the most sense in the way that we would tell what was happening in our time…(We’re) presenting these false…fairy-tale versions of ourselves.” Fairy Tales” is a visual storybook of erotic short stories, starring Alexa Demie and shot by Petra Collins. The concept was written and brought to life by the two by creating characters and stories they wish were told to them. A modern, surreal update to classics such as those from Hans Christian Andersen, The Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault, and more, these nine stories stand uniquely and irrepressibly on their own. Sensual in the way of its approach, “ Fairy Tales” allows an older, more mature audience to enjoy fantasy without the “adolescent” pejorative attached to the genre.

Each of the nine tales are set in unique spaces, ranging from suburban homes and parking lots to fantastical sets. Petra and Alexa’s chapters of elves, mermaids, sirens, water sprites, fallen angels, fairies, witches, and banshees blend their own stories with retold fairy tales. The photos combine elements of camp, prosthetics, and shibari in a surreal update to the imagery of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, and others. Fairy Tales is] acollaboration with the photographer Petra Collins -- a body of work that reimagines the female creatures who inhabit folk- and fairy-tales, who are often cast as one-dimensional monsters or temptresses. Their recent photo book "Fairy Tales" features Demie as nine different personas, including a faerie, siren, banshee and water sprite, as well as Hungarian legends like Tűz Anya (meaning'fire mother') that Collins grew up with. It explores the femininity and sexuality of mythological beings, but in the context of very human spaces, such as teenage bedrooms, medical facilities, parking lots and exotic dancing clubs."—CNN Aesthetically, Collins’ images have been variously but consistently described as dream-like and feminine, making her fixation on fantasy — and the fever dream that is girlhood — fitting. But in a bit of a plot twist, she says she’s long been inspired by coming-of-age, body horror movies, like The Exorcistand Carrie.She also loves the work of fellow Canadian David Cronenberg.

2015

With the book’s Hungarian title Miért vagy te, ha lehetsz én is? Collins asks us: Why be you, when you can be me? Collins uses the camera as the third person. It captures historical truths (such as a time and place) and an emotional reality with a complicated relationship to intention and perception. Working with the sculptor Sarah Sitkin, Collins creates moulds of her body as well as her sisters to gain ownership, in a world where our bodies live in multiple realities. This new body of work features Collins first experiments with self-portraiture. 2019 OMG, I’m Being Killed I lived in two different worlds: our world, and then a full other fantasy world,” Collins tells me from her bedroom in Los Angeles over Zoom on a recent afternoon. “It was the best way of disassociating—making these beautiful worlds.” Collins found resonance with this novel about an outcast girl who believes she’s a mermaid after she finished reading “The Pisces.” “It ruined me. It was a scary accurate depiction of coming of age,” she said. “The main character flutters between what is real and what isn’t – and it’s what I did with ‘Fairy Tales.’” I think a lot of those folktales or the storytelling comes from all of the pain of what our country went through, especially under the Soviet regime,” she said. “They’re super psychedelic…and sort of like, violent,” she added, recalling an illustrated tale where a girl sells her body for goats. “I definitely felt like the darkness in these stories.” Upholding the undertones of classic fantasy literature, “ Fairy Tales” carries darker, erotic messages baked into its nine chapters, both subconciously and obviously. “Banshee,” a story following two sisters avoiding an encounter with a banshee, plays out like a glamorous urban legend told over a campfire. A unique approach to this kind of fiction, we see the aftermath of the subsequent encounter, resulting in the two sisters becoming physically one with this “long-tressed woman.” In the eighth chapter, “Water Sprite,” the “weird girl” in a college dormitory creates a safe haven in her room, while the exterior campus believes her self-imposed isolation to be something much more sinister.

But “Fairy Tales” is also Collins’ interpretation of how our virtual lives have rapidly evolved during the pandemic, she explained, calling the digital space a “mythical reality” where many have become fixated on how they present themselves and facial-altering image filters have flourished. The first monograph by photographer Petra Collins presents the world of a thoroughly modern creative. 2015 Babe Each of the nine tales are set in unique spaces, ranging from suburban homes and parking lots to fantastical sets. Petra and Alexa’s chapters of elves, mermaids, sirens, water sprites, fallen angels, fairies, witches, and banshees blend their own stories with retold fairy tales. The photos combine elements of camp, prosthetics, and shibari in a surreal update to the imagery of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, and others. 2020 Miért vagy te, ha lehetsz én is? Throughout the series, the personas each contend with a conflicted sense of self, recalling the film portraits that made Collins a defining voice of girlhood in the 2010s, as well as her recent music videos for pop star Olivia Rodrigo.As a child, the artist Petra Collins and her sister Anna conjured fairy tale worlds where they could escape from reality, live out their dreams, and play within their deepest fantasies.

The latter character is labeled in the book as a “viz tunder”—the Hungarian name for this particular kind of sprite. Collins was raised on a diet of Hungarian folktales: stories that she describes as “super psychedelic, so sexual, and violent.” She points to one tale in which a girl trades her body for goats, then raises her skirt to reveal a blinding light as a euphemism for her vagina. “This is seared into my memory, and I didn’t realize it was such a big reference until years and years later,” Collins says. Since the early 2010s, Petra Collins has redefined the scene of photography and film with her ethereal, pastel-saturated visuals. Directing campaigns for high fashion brands such as Gucci and Bulgari, music videos for pop artists Olivia Rodrigo and Carly Rae Jepsen, and developing her first feature film (“ Spiral” starring Selena Gomez), Collins’ work has been publicly recognized in nearly every corner of the entertainment industry. Playing pretend is by no means a novel aspect of childhood—but Collins has taken that ethos and made a buzzy career out of it. In just seven years, the Toronto native has established her own uniquely hazy, female-gaze-centric aesthetic; become both muse and protégé to photographer Ryan McGinley; shot countless magazine covers; hosted exhibitions at MoMA and Art Basel, and directed short films and music videos for the likes of Cardi B and Olivia Rodrigo. (Her Good 4 U music video for the 18-year-old singer was most recently nominated for a Grammy—Rodrigo FaceTimed Collins during this very interview to congratulate her.) I don’t think either of us has ever been comfortable in her immediate reality. Most of our childhoods were spent escaping in our minds,” Collins and Demie write in the prologue. As children, fairy tales played an important part for both of the women, allowing them escape from the dread of their own realities. The nine, nonlinear stories in “Fairy Tales” stem as much from their imaginations, as their traumas and the tales they told themselves.Artist Petra Collins and actress Alexa Demie create nine erotic stories in a contemporary reimagining of a fairy tale book. For both Collins and Demie, fairy-tales offered a place of refuge when they were younger. “We started talking about fairy-tales and folktales, and what it meant for us,” Collins said in a phone interview. “Because both of us came from very chaotic households…So any type of imaginary realm that I could get into I would, and that’s sort of where I lived.” Alexa Demie and Petra Collins reimagine the mythical female beings of folk- and fairy-tales. Petra Collins/Rizzoli The protagonists each deal with feelings of loss and exclusion: the grieving banshee whose life intertwines with two human sisters, or the fallen angel who gives up her lofty paradise to experience the realities of Earth, all detailed in hand-written narratives accompanying the images. Collins’ images often feature Demie’s characters practicing the erotic art form shibari – or Japanese rope bondage – symbolizing losing and regaining a sense of control. The way that I learned everything in art was through collaboration. So whenever I have a subject, I approach it as a really exciting collaboration…I’m like, ‘What do you want to feel like? Or what do you want to possess? What image do you want to put out?’” she says, adding: “I think the whole thing with shooting subjects, celebrities, and talent is that you really want their input. And then you also want to bring something new to them too.”

Once upon a time, there was a subversive fashion photographer who released her book this week…oh, wait! That’s not an actual fairy tale—but Petra Collins’ visual tome certainly fits the bill. Created in collaboration with Euphoria star and muse Alexa Demie, Collins has just dropped “Fairy Tales,” her latest book in the form of nine erotic short stories based on works by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and more. Both women collaborated on the text and the visuals, which star Demie as various elves, mermaids, fairies, and other make-believe creatures in surrealist sets that blend reality and fantasy."—DAILY FRONT ROW Alexa Demie is an actor, musician and multi-hyphenate talent who currently stars as ‘Maddy’ in HBO’s EUPHORIA. She has starred in acclaimed A24 films and had successin creative direction and design projects. Alexa is currently working on her first EP, developing and producing film and TV, and engaged in social impact work focused on equality and representation, especially for the Latinx community and the next generation of youth.For Collins, "Fairy Tales" also speaks to the ways in which our online lives have changed us. "(We're) presenting these false...fairy-tale versions of ourselves," she said. Petra Collins/Rizzoli