Self and Self-Settler Selfies (2021)

This work was inspired by a flashbulb moment in 2019 after the discovery of Attie’s Russian self-portraits of the 70s. With the smartphone technology of today making photography more accessible than then, I created an on-the-spot mini self-portrait project on a visit to the zone in September 2021, designed to give the Babushkas ownership and some control over how they are perceived by the outside world, and how they want themselves to be seen rather than what I show of them.

It was another way of re-enlivening creativity amongst the Babushkas regardless of it being a different discipline from the hand-embroidery that had brought us together. They found it fun and became modestly animated, which was a successful outcome. As a collaborative activity it was used in order to record and preserve such things which have no material form, where their expression and body language is a fleeting, momentary thing.

It is certainly a record of their lived experience and in autoethnographic terms, our shared lived experience. It further nurtured emotional intimacies re-enlivening creativity in a complex context and was a new approach to articulate the dialogues of our participatory journey.