«To Portray Is to Meet»: The Performativity of Lene Marie Fossen’s Photographic Self-Portraits
Jakub Pawlak
kuba.pawlak@doctoral.uj.edu.plJagiellonian University Doctoral School in the Humanities (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4274-895X
Abstract
This article discusses the work of the Norwegian photographer Lene Marie Fossen (1986–2019) and a documentary film about her: Self-Portrait (2020, dir. Margareth Olin, Katja Høgset, and Espen Wallin). In an attempt to co-think with photographic self-portraits of the artist, who suffered from severe anorexia, the author draws on methodologies of performance studies, especially the theories of performative index (Margaret Olin) and representation (Peggy Phelan). The proposed description of Fossen’s artistic practice has been inspired by categories of autological imaginaries, encompassing discourses of individual freedom, and genealogical imaginaries, encompassing discourses of social constraints (Elizabeth A. Povinelli). The author interprets Fossen’s photographs as results of her experiments with her own corporeality at a point where these imaginaries intersect and undermine each other. The photographic (re)presentations do not answer the question of who the real Fossen is or is not, but rather test the power of the artist’s and her audiences’ imagination. Arguing that the medium of photography gave Fossen the ability to balance the border between the marked and the umarked, the author sees this as the source of the emancipatory potential of her photographic self-portraits.
Keywords:
Lene Marie Fossen, photographic self-portrait, performative index, performativity of representation, autological subject, genealogical societyReferences
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Authors
Jakub Pawlakkuba.pawlak@doctoral.uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Doctoral School in the Humanities Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4274-895X
Jakub Pawlak - graduated in Performance Studies and Swedish Philology, both from Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He continues his studies at the Jagiellonian University Doctoral School in the Humanities and participates in a transdisciplinary research team in the project Normalność w warunkach niepewności. Perspektywa prakseologiczna w badaniach (re)produkcji „normalnego” życia miejskiego (grant funded by the NCN OPUS 21).
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