#SelfieNation
2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
15 handmade analogue enlargements, 30 x 20 cm
65 inkjet prints on paper, 30 x 20 cm


During the Covid pandemic and the lockdown I became intrigued by self-portraits with the hashtag #selfalienation. For me, these selfies represent several important themes such as social aspiration, unpaid work, human body normalization and self-alienation.

Over the course of two days, I made screenshots of hundreds of posts with this hashtag. I adjusted the contrast and brightness of these photographs. Subsequently I printed them on office paper and hung them up on a rack opposite a wet school blackboard. I captured the reflections of individual selfies on a thin layer of water using an analogue camera. I thus acquired a large number of photographic film negatives with variously deformed and blurred portraits.

Of this total number I manually enlarged 15 photographs in the darkroom. Another 65 prints were scanned, digitally adjusted and printed on appropriate photographic paper.

photo: Tomaš Souček, Jiří Thýn and author’s archive