She wanted to be named Rebecca
Sonya Mantere
She
wanted
to be
named
Rebecca
Sonya
Mantere
Info
This photographic investigation relies on the nature of representation.
Reconstructing my mother in this self-reflective series, I aim to question the society that allows very limited field of gender expression. Intimate and playful dress-up, incorporating gestures and costumes from both feminine and masculine.
These images are grounded in intense experimentation and impersonating characters, while pushing and pulling in several directions at once.
As Susan Sontag writes in On Photography: ”To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves”. A picture is not just the result of an encounter between the subject and a photographer; image-taking gives the permission to interfere with the individual.
Familiar figure, constantly made strange by me, (She wanted to be named) Rebecca expands the notion of the representation of older women. In this theatrical transformation, the images examine interpersonal dynamics between a mother and a daughter. Even someone you think you are familiar with, is actually a possibility for looking at the world in a new way.
About
Sonya Mantere (b.1987,FI) is a visual artist based in Helsinki.
In her photographic practice Mantere examines the familiar, her mother, through reconstruction
of identities. The self-reflective series aim to address the society that allows very limited field of
gender expression.
The intense collaboration between them is an ongoing exploration.
CV
Contact
sonya.mantere(at)gmail.com
+35 84 051 516 96
@sonyamantere