Looking at one’s own body is completely normal, even if it is often critical. But looking at another always feels like stumbling upon a secret. Naked people captured in photography have long since freed themselves from intrusive eroticism and reveal the simple human condition. In the history of nude photography, the images are either the most honest or the most instrumentalised representation - or sometimes both.
The “Your Selfie is Iconic!” project was launched in 2022 by the Dresden-based conceptual artist Hannah Doepke and Berlin-based communication designer Yulia Ostheimer. The focus is on FLINTA* - representing women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, transgender and agender people. The attached asterisk serves as a placeholder for all people who do not find themselves in any of the letters, but are nevertheless affected by marginalization because of their gender identity. It is precisely this peripheral position that often prevents these people from having autonomy over their own bodies and living in a healthy relationship with themselves and their bodies.
An open call invited all interested people to submit nude selfie pictures to the two organisers. Images were taken in moments of self-exploration. The art theorist Wolfgang Ullrich writes in his book Selfies: “Anyone who takes a selfie turns themselves into an image”.1 However, unlike most selfies, these images were not distributed on social media. Instead, they were presented in various exhibitions in a specific setting. A smartphone, integrated into a blanket sculpture, allowed the viewing of the images. In order to view the collection of images, the audience had to touch the sculpture, use it, strike a pose. This in turn created the impression that the audience were also creating selfies of themselves.
Parallel to these exhibitions, 20 hand-bound photo volumes were produced containing altogether 120 images from the collection. One of these copies is now here in our library collection and can be viewed on site.
Further information on the entire project can be found here: yourselfieisiconic.cargo.site
1 Ullrich, Wolfgang: Selfies. Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 2019, p. 6
