I AM U

What would happen if a self-portrait became a way of approaching somebody else?

In I AM U, I made portraits through my own body in response to other people's digital presence. I called them “yourselfies”. The image was of me, but its starting point was another person.

The project invited me to look beyond the apparent familiarity of a social media profile. A profile contains images, language and fragments of a life. It also contains gaps. Looking at it closely does not mean possessing the person it represents.

Encounter rather than imitation

I approached these portraits intuitively, responding to what I sensed in the participants' online presence. The process belonged to my own experience of spirituality and creative attention.

The aim was not simply to copy a photograph or reproduce someone's appearance. I was exploring how another person's qualities might be expressed through a performance, and what could emerge when identity was approached as a relationship.

That left the work in an interesting space. Was the portrait of the participant, of me, or of the encounter between us? The title held those possibilities together.

Every image carried the limits of my interpretation. The participant remained a person with a life beyond what I could see. The portrait offered a response, not a complete account.

Making a space for participation

Working with my friend and collaborator Felicia Lloyd, the project also became a community experience through exhibitions and workshops.

Participation changed the work. People could bring curiosity, recognise something in an image or question what they saw. The portrait became the beginning of a conversation rather than its conclusion.

The quality of that conversation depended on the space around it. Digital visibility can invite hostility as readily as connection. Creating a community for this work meant attending to its boundaries and the conditions under which people could take part.

That care belonged to the artistic process. It was not enough to make an invitation; the invitation needed a context in which it could be received.

I AM U expanded my understanding of self-portraiture. The body before the camera could be a medium through which to explore relation, interpretation and difference.

The work asked how we might see one another more attentively, while accepting that another person can never be reduced to what we make of them.