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I see myself with you

Teenager photographic course - First Level
Exibition Festival FolloWme 2019
Martina Orlandi, Matilde Pantani e Sara Russo

Photography teacher Cinzia Canneri

The self-portrait is a representation of itself invented, constructed and also discovered, which always springs from the meeting of the gaze with that of others.

In addition to themselves, the authors of the work also photographed people, objects and places that represented them.

A body shown says "I am no longer just what I wanted to be, but I become what you see and what I discover again through your gaze on me", so also the self-image is offered to the plurality of meanings of looks different.

With the self-portrait, unlike a selfie, the subject's gaze is not simultaneous with the shot; there is an unknown who guides the transition from perception of the self to its representation, a relational time between not seeing and seeing that becomes the interconnection between one's own feeling and the external world.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s pair of us!
Don’t Tell! They’d banish us – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell your name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson's poetry recalls the vulgarity of firm identities, limited to their definition and subjected to the weight of the power of affirmation.

Being nobody does not mean having no identity, but leaving yourself free to change. Identity rests its basis on the question Who I am and the answer finds its stability in the flow of relationships that produce a sense of continuity and at the same time transience of meanings.