SELF PORTRAIT 34 videos – 43 min – 2025

In 2013, the term “selfie” was voted “word of the year” in the Oxford Dictionary. It refers to self-portraits taken “at arm’s length” using a digital process (cell phone, camera, etc.). New uses of the phone and social media have, in fact, made self-representation commonplace, requiring control over one’s own presentation. Smiling portraits in a variety of settings, aimed primarily at self-esteem, certainly account for billions of gigabytes in Google’s “photo” software.

“Love yourself.” A phrase that fits our times. Does it reflect the selfishness, egocentrism, and pride of our individualistic societies? Of course, those who don’t love themselves cannot love others, that’s a given. But perhaps too much self-sympathy isn’t healthy…

For centuries, the visual arts have cultivated self-portraiture in all media. Video art is an exception, having contributed little to this craze. Of course, contemporary trends involving recording images of artists’ performances are widespread, but most of them do not constitute narratives of the self.

Experimental cinema in the 1960s initiated the first “self-filming,” while at the same time, television shows were interested in the private testimonies of anonymous people, and the trend for first-person documentaries was spreading. The suffering or joyful “I” so pervaded television images that, we can assume, most video artists have avoided entering the game of public confession as the subject matter of their videos.

Anyone who talks about writing their autobiography or creating their own self-portrait arouses suspicion and is quickly suspected of self-centered motives, or even of projects with voyeuristic overtones. Critical discourse on this type of production must certainly have played a role in this distancing of video artists from self-portraiture as a fully-fledged artistic approach.

The artists of FL’Art challenged themselves to install their self-portrait within a one-minute video. Their approach to self-portraiture is part of an introspective process that combines the multiple facets of their identity. Some slip into the image or adopt a metaphorical representation of themselves. Others question time and its traces. For still others, the search for meaning is more imperative. This exercise results in self-portraits that take stock, or that distance oneself, or that return to the essential, and/or that acknowledge the person the artist has become or no longer is. Some also draw inspiration from Eastern wisdom, such as Buddhism, to offer us self-portraits in which they have deliberately erased themselves.

Body and Identity: The Materiality of Being

Since the dawn of artistic consciousness, the face has offered itself as a primary field of exploration. The self- portrait, in its rawest essence, is a direct confrontation with the materiality of being. These features, which we scrutinize every morning in the reflection of mirrors, are probed with the subjectivity of the creator in an attempt to grasp the fluid and complex identities that both define us and elude us.

AVATAR by Fatima Mazmouz (Morocco – 1)

SELF-PORTRAIT by Evgenija Demnievska (Serbia – 4)

SURGED, RIPPLED, PURGED by Mesrure Melis Bilgin (Turkey – 9) RUNNING by Eva Koch (Denmark – 12)

TUTTO BENE by Rachida Azdaou (Algeria – 15)

DECONSTRUCTED SELF by Christie Widiarto (Australia – 16)

UN DIA VOY A SER OTRA by Teresa Puppo (Uruguay – 29) SELF-PORTRAIT IN BALANCE by Véronique Sapin (France / Canada – 31) CAMERA ON ME by Prilla Tania (Indonesia – 32)

Topographies of the Intimate: Places and Objects as Extensions of the Self

In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote the first A well-known intellectual autobiography. In it, he compares memory to “vast palaces” through which he wanders. The spaces we inhabit and the objects that surround us extend, prolong, and imbue our identity. Studios, homes, the landscapes of childhood or exile become indirect mirrors. A bed, an open book, a curtain filtering the light in front of a window—all significant details that weave a silent narrative around the figure of the artist. These places and objects construct part of our identity in the secrecy of habits, affection, or rejection.

I GIVE MY PORTRAIT FROM BEHIND TO THE SUN AND MY PORTRAIT FROM THE FRONT TO THE MOON by Cagdas Kahriman (Türkiye – 2)

JECKE TRAVELS DIMENSIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL SNOWFLAKES by Jelena Miskovic (Serbia – 3)

I NOT I, A LOOP by Carolina Saquel (Chile / France – 7)

SELF-PORTRAIT (ALMOST) by Susana Barbara (Argentina – 13)

SELF-PORTRAIT / VOUVOULA’S BIRTHDAY PARTY – Berlin – Athens by Vouvoula Skoura (Greece – 14) I AM EVERY WOMAN by Lucy Azubuike (Nigeria / USA – 21)

THE PARADOX OF ORIGIN (Whose First Memory Am I?) by Heejeong Jeong (Republic of Korea – 22) ICONOGRAPHY by Sima Zureikat (Jordan / USA – 24)

FACING THE SEA by Surekha Sharada (India – 27)

GLIMPSE IN THE MIRROR by Liina Siib (Estonia – 30)

MNEMONIC NEBULAE by Vicky Betsou (Greece – 34)

Presence in the World: Self-Portrait as Engagement

The artists also approach their self-portraits from the perspective of a claim or a position. Whether through it, it’s a matter of affirming a sense of belonging, bearing witness to a social or political reality, or simply existing powerfully in the eyes of others, artists place themselves at the center of their own discourse in order to situate themselves within the vast theater of the world.

ATLAS by Marilena Preda Sanc (Romania – 5)

I SHALL TRY [SELFPORTRAIT AS A FILM MAKER] by Anne Penders (Belgium – 10) LIBERTALIA by Maria Rosa Jijon Calderon (Ecuador – 11)

THE FLOW by Antonella Bussanich (Italy – 17)

I AM THE FIELD by Irina Gabiani (Luxembourg / Georgia – 20)

NO SELF by Madelon Hooykaas (Netherlands – 23)

SECRETS OF WRAPPING by Katya Nikonorova (Kazakhstan – 25)

Self-Portraits Under Influence: The Self Through the Prism of Context and Events

Personal history, significant encounters, social upheavals, and cultural trends are all influences that shape identity and, consequently, the way artists perceive and represent themselves. Their self-portraits are the result of interactions with the outside world. They bear witness to the permeability of identity.

WOLF by Amaranta Sanchez (Mexico – 6) SELF-PORTRAIT by Minoo Iranpour (Iran – 8) FLOWER IN HAND by C. M. Judge (USA – 18) SELF-PORTRAIT by Inas Hakki (Syria – 19) DISTANCE by Tanya Akhmetgalieva (Russia – 26) FRAGMENTS by Sigrun Hardardottir (Iceland – 28) LIVE IN PROGRES by Maria de Alba (Spain – 33)