A Gaze of One's Own

In the history of photography naked women have been photographed almost exclusively by men. My gaze is shaped by these photographs which are based on male ideas, desires, and fantasies of a woman’s body. I ask myself: Do I even have my own view of my own body? How can I recognize stereotypical views of the female body and deconstruct them to make them my own? How to overcome the male gaze or gender posing? Is it even possible? It is - as Laura Mulvey puts it - «the ultimate challenge: how to fight the unconscious structured like a language <…> while still caught within the language of the patriarchy.»

 

I photograph myself, my own body, because I cannot objectify myself. Taking and making images becomes almost a performative gesture. I want to reflect on my own seeing: What one sees, how, when and why. And make this perceptible through art.

In context of the medium of photography which is primarily concerned with depicting young and flawless bodies, works that portray the aging female body are virtually not existent. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and with an exploratory eye I take a curious, playful, sometimes painful gaze at my female naked aging body.