I see myself with you

This work was created by three 16-year-old girls, Martina, Matilde, and Sara, who developed the concept of self-portraiture as a journey of self-discovery through the gaze of others.

In their experience, the self-portrait was not limited to a simple self-shot but was also based on an image that was discussed, chosen, and constructed together, incorporating each other’s perspectives. Their interpretation of the self-portrait was not just an individual and solitary experience but a representation of the self explored through dialogue and shared vision with others.

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.