Face Off is a series that tries to look at human's physical appearance in a different light and utilizes the medium of photography to create human sculptures.

My research for this project goes back to the theories of Judith Butler who famously claims that a person's (gender) identity is performative and therefor does not rely solely on factors such as genetics or social background. It implies that identity is in fact fluid and can transform, just like an animal can shed its skin. This introduces the second theory the project is based on, which is by Walter Benjamin who investigates the denotation and function of clothing as a parameter. He concludes that skin is a fabric and clothes are a second skin, and it has become impossible to tell them apart. To me, both of these suppositions strongly resonate with one another and their symbiosis has been a catalyst for me to work on this series, exploring my understanding of their implications.

I started out depriving my subjects of some of their distinctive features to see the effect these masking tropes have on both subject and viewer. My intention here was to take emphasis away from parameters like race, gender, class as well as age, in order to create some sort of utopia for the individual, who now has the freedom to become something different entirely without being restrained to factors they themselves cannot control - at least for the duration of one single exposure.

Diplom 2019