Bold Beauty at UCLA is bringing its vision of the connection between art and disability to campus.

The club is a chapter of the Bold Beauty Project – a national organization that pairs women with disabilities and photographers to create “photo-stories” of each model, according to its website. The club will host its first photography showcase Sunday afternoon on Kerckhoff patio.

The event is the culmination of several months of planning, said Alexa Le, a third-year psychobiology student and one of Bold Beauty at UCLA’s three co-presidents.

“It’s a celebration of everyone’s hard work for the project – the models, the photographers, the board, the general volunteers, everyone,” Le said.

Emma Wruck, another co-president of the club, said she and her co-presidents – Le and Selina Juang – decided to create the club after attending a talk by Dr. Eva Ritvo, co-founder of the Bold Beauty Project and a UCLA alumnus.

“All three of us expressed our interest in bringing the project to her alma mater, and she was really excited to do so,” said Wruck, a third-year psychobiology student.

The Bold Beauty Project aligns with UCLA’s focus on disability studies and awareness, Le said.

She added that Bold Beauty at UCLA works with photographers and models from across Los Angeles, with some models also traveling from Boston and South Africa.

Wruck said she has a personal interest in fashion and considers Bold Beauty at UCLA a way of expressing herself creatively while helping the models feel their best and achieve their own creative visions.

“It is quite powerful to be the center of a photo shoot, to see yourself blown up live, to have everybody come look at you,” Ritvo said. “I’ve never had that experience. You’ve never had that experience.”

Ritvo also said she believes the models’ stories show resilience, adding that she hopes the initiative will help attendees understand the challenges faced by people with disabilities.

“Try to expand what you see as beautiful, and that will allow you to have a better life, because beauty makes us feel good, right?” she said.

Photo shoots for the models began around March, said Juang, a fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student.

Juang added that the models completed questionnaires on their visions for the shoots – which informed location choices, photography equipment and the aesthetics of the final photos.

“All the photo shoots were very special, just because not a single one of them necessarily looked the same,” Le said. “All the models had a different vision in mind, and I think they all turned out very beautiful.”

Mars Rivera Bances, a fourth-year social work student at California State University, San Marcos, said she signed up to be a model because she wanted to show that beauty comes in all forms.

Rivera Bances said she wanted a tropical atmosphere in her shoot to represent her birthplace, Guatemala.

“In a sense, this is where I’m from, but this is who I became,” Rivera Bances said. “Especially with the wheelchair, because it’s still a part of me, but it’s not me.”

She added that she felt more confident in her body and herself after the shoot.

Dorothy Bugliari, a UCLA alumnus and another model, said she felt honored to be involved with a UCLA club again.

The first part of her photo shoot involved wearing a prom dress in different parts of the campus, Bugliari said. She added that the second part of her photo shoot took place in a flower field and was inspired by Frida Kahlo, an artist she admires.

“I couldn’t be more thankful for them (the photos),” Bugliari said. “They’re really capturing of my beauty and my essence and just who I am as a person.”

Ritvo said she encourages the UCLA community to stop by the Sunday photography showcase, which is a free event on campus.

“I think everyone can definitely enjoy the exhibition – whether it’s the live performances, talking with other people or just appreciating the photos,” Juang said.

The club is planning on hosting another photography showcase next year, Wruck added.

“We’re constantly working on growing,” she said. “We’ve just been out trying to generate as much interest as possible so that we know that it’s not just a temporary thing and that it’s going to be a long-lasting thing here at UCLA.”

Ritvo added that she hopes other universities around LA or nationwide will be inspired by Bold Beauty at UCLA and create chapters on their campuses.

“There’s always a need for people to carve out their own niches, and we have space for general volunteers – really just anyone who wants to make an impact with this project,” Le said.