PH626 Self as Subject - Week 1

I am in my last semester at AAU, and things could not be more crazy. I have been struggling with a lot lately, from my personal to my professional life, and honestly this class could not have come at a better time. I am hoping that I can work on my thesis as well as producing more abstract work about my self and my identity not only in this world but as an artist.

The environment of the class felt great, and having Connie as my teacher again is a pure blessing for my last semester. She really gives me the freedom to do work that matters to me, and ends up giving me more confidence as an artist. Anyway, enough about this, let me tell you what I have been up to this first week.

First of all we had two readings that were very interesting. One was called “What’s the difference between a Selfie and a Self-Portrait?” by Alli Burness and the other was “Selfie vs. self-portrait” by Gordon Silveria. In unanimous I think both articles suggest that both the selfie and the self-portrait have artistic value, and it depends on what the creator actually intended, but overall if we put away our judgmental selves aside, we can probably understand that photography is an outlet, and as creative people we use this medium to our advantage. If people are posting selfies that have undeniable value for them, then who am I to condone them for it? I am sure some people find my self-portraiture work obnoxious and don’t understand why I photograph myself when there are a thousand other things I could be pointing my lens at. Truth is, sometimes the self is the hardest thing to define, and maybe photograph helps people slowly do just that.

A good question we had to answer for class was: “What is YOUR definition of a Self-Portrait?” and this was the answer I decided to give:

“I believe that a self-portrait is more than just an image of yourself. I think self-portraiture is the method through which an artist can create a representation of their personality or identity be it by using themselves, objects, places or other people. So in fact, a self-portrait can be pretty much any photograph as long as that was the intent of the artist. Of course this can make it very hard for the viewer to recognize work as being self-portraiture without the physical presence of the subject themselves, but I believe that it is the essence of the artist that need to show when a self-portrait is involved. For me, a self-portrait is the necessary imprint of an artist in the world.”

Then, we had a second question we had to answer, and I believe it to have been the hardest question I have ever had to answer. The question was “Who are you?” and my response was the following:

“I don’t feel like this is a question one can ever reply to. How can we know who we are if we are all in a constant flux of growth, discovery and experiences? I might be 60 or 90 and still be searching for who I am as a person or an individual. There are constants of my identity that I can say with certainty that are fixed and to be true. I can effectively confirm that I am a 26-year-old female, born in Portugal that has lived and studied arts in the UK and USA. Other than that, who I am will be forever changing, and I have come to accept that, because it is this constant search for who I am that makes me create art, meet new people and try new things…

I would like to define myself as an artist though. I know that for this MFA program, people would prefer me to define myself as a fine art photographer, but I can’t. To me, my work is so much more than what lies in front of the camera. What happens behind it is just as important. My state of mind, my experiences, the way I feel I need to manipulate images have come to show that I am not only about being behind and in front of the camera pointing and shooting. I am a visual person, who uses photography as her prefer medium, but who constantly battles to find the true format in which my artistic vision is true to who I am at that particular moment in time.”

All these questions about what is a self-portrait and who I am made me question a lot of what has happened in my life in the past year and a half. I had to stop and think how these changes have affected my life, if they have been good, neutral, or if they were even important at all to the person who I have grown into. So, I decided to use this first self-portrait assignment to tell chapters of my continuous story, chapters that have surfaced in the last year and a half.

The Polaroid
At first when I grabbed my Polaroid Spectra, I did not understand why I wanted to photograph in this format. Usually I am very digitally oriented, and I like the fact that I can use post-production and Photoshop to alter my narratives, but for the story I am about to tell you, digital didn’t seem like an appropriate medium. I wanted these photos to have an aesthetic that would read as true, raw, un-edited and un-altered. Of course as photographers we know this can never really be the case, but the Polaroid, a medium that is almost extinct, the fact that these prints are not archival only added to the fact that these chapters have happened in my life, and will not happen again in the same way, at the same time, and probably in years to come, they will be forgotten. This was the first image I came about doing for this week:

“INVISIBLE”

This photo was a triple exposure done with my Spectra. I intended for my silhouette to be almost of a blur, almost unrecognizable, almost monster like. The back story for this was the passing phase I had where I was extremely overweight. I wanted to be invisible because I was not comfortable with myself, and even with that size of 210lbs, I was, people would not notice me, I was a ghost who hanged around with my friends. This photo was made to enhance the fact that this was a very important yet depressing part of my life, but now it is over, and I am ready to let it go…

With that said, this summer I went through a new phase. I stopped thinking that I was not worthy of anyone, that I had to keep being invisible because I had been over weight and I didn’t accept that I had changed. I let alcohol and nights out be my outlet and went on a journey of sexual self discovery, slowly allowing the opposite sex to talk to me, to get to know who I am, I opened up again to a resemblance of someone I had once been, fun and outgoing with no reservations…

“GET HIGH”

I think, somehow, I went a bit overboard. I got high on the feeling of being so liberated, of finally letting go of the past that had tormented me for so long. The photos represented the way I finally felt comfortable in my own body. I wanted to feel like I could show myself to the world, with no reservations, but as soon as I took the photos, I knew they were not working for me. They were too raw, and the way I had felt for so long kind of resurfaced. I knew I had to do something to the photographs to touch upon the idea that too much exposure is also not healthy, and that maybe i had embarked on a journey that had been way too heavy, and wanted to tone it down a little, especially because I now feel like that chapter is also over. I am comfortable putting myself out there, but still within my moral reservations, and also because I have met someone, so again, my story is changing…

“MY HEAD IS A JUNGLE”

This set was an exploration of what I am presently going through. Where my emotions are pretty much all over the place. From Left to right the words I associate with the photos are: Pleasure, Doubt and Affection. This is totally addressing the present state of mind I find myself at the moment. I have met someone who I actually like, feel comfortable with and above all have immense amounts of fun. The problem is, I am leaving this country by the end of the year, and the doubt associated with opening up to someone you know you will eventually part from is scary, but it’s another chapter I have to go through, and one which will eventually sort itself out.

So these were three chapters that I decided to explore this week. I don’t know how successful they were, but certainly they were cathartic for me, to go through these physical steps of recreating scenes from my own life, in accepting them, and now moving on from them. But really, isn’t this why we make art? Yes it is….!!!!