The Great Art of Light and Shadow
-
PrizeHonorable Mention
-
PhotographerUrsa Majeure [photography duo], Austria
-
Website
"As Peggy Phelan describes in ‘The Unmarked’, posing for a portrait is a process whereby one performs an identity that one believes others expect to see. Uncertain about what the body looks like or how substantial it is, we perform, Phelan says, “an image of it by imitating what we think we look like. We imagine what people might see when they look at us and then we try to perform (and conform to) those images… The imitative reproduction of the self-image always involves a detour through the eye of the other."
From 'Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in 18th Century British Painting'
Ursa Majeure (*2023, Stuttgart) was born Athena-style from the combined heads of a two-part organism wandering the forests around a 1700s schloss. If experience were summative, she would have a three-decade long photographic career by now, despite being birthed in January of last year. She has grand plans for her future as a photographer, including experimenting with different techniques—state-of-the-art as well as historical. A crucial feature of her practice is the symbiosis of photography and text, or, more broadly, the fusion of art and science—the perennial holy grail of contemporality.
Awards Chromatic Photography Awards 2023 - People: Honorable Mention (Amateur)
Monochrome Photography Awards 2023 - Portrait: Honorable Mention (Amateur)