Am I Just a Body?

This is an on-going self-portrait series centered around the question, 'am I just a body?'. This began in 2018 in the bathroom, a safe space, in a deep but small bathtub in a community house in Antwerp. The bathroom, or more specifically, the space that we stand or sit in to clean our bodies, became my backdrop, as a bathed or showered - an intimate enactment that is an everyday ritual. From there on I created a set of self-portraits in each of my three accommodations in Antwerp, dressing up and dressing down, as I performed as a nude female. These photographs echo the theme of self-portrait, however, concealment of my identity is a factor that has been shaped into the work; which stems from an idea I placed upon my mind that men saw me as a body, and not as a human that they wanted to get to know. The act of photographing one self, in whichever way it may be, such as a selfie on the phone or a staged portrait in the studio, gives that person complete power and control over the photographs, which in many cases, when people take photographs of you, you lose that power even if it’s your own face or body being documented. The knowledge that I as the creator and the model had control elevated my ability to act in front of the camera, that would be the only witness in that private moment.