Embodied Self-portraiture and Female Self-actualisation
Self-portraiture carries with it the almost occult-like promise of self-knowledge. Embodied self-portraiture positions the body in the art-making process as both the source of knowledge and the subject to be known not through simple self-representation, but the creation of self. As women create embodied self-portraits they inherently encounter the initial paradoxes of subjectivity, namely that they are both a subject of experience and an object in the world. What happens when a woman creates a self-portrait and encounters the paradox of her own objecthood? What challenges or barriers arise? And what can we learn about women's experience of paradox as she moves through the act of self-actualisation?
This PhD project, being undertaken at Kingston University London, explores how embodied self-portraiture can be used to ask and answer
philosophical questions about women's pathways towards self-actualisation, as well as the barriers they encounter. Through arts practice-as-research and curation of embodied self-portraiture, the project critiques broader frameworks for how we have formalized and theorized the embodied and self-actualised subject.
Research
The research is broken down into stages in order to explore embodied methods of self-portraiture in critiquing self-actualisation; historical self-portraits and their ability to highlight social, political and ideological barriers towards women self-actualising; and examine curational practices of self-portraiture.
News & Events
