Silent Figures

Silent Figures explores the private life of couples, through their often silent or unvoiced dynamics. I am interested in the complex contradictions that exist in a relationship – on the one hand there being the desire to share and the need to be in a couple, and on the other hand, there being the lack of emotion, sense of estrangement and deep solitude that can simultaneously ensue. The ‘home’ is where people feel relaxed and safe, where they find their own dimensions, without wearing a mask or needing to perform a certain ‘persona’, consciously or unconsciously. However, within the couple, there is a tension between how one might act and be when entirely alone with one’s individual self, compared to the shared self that may still perform roles or compromise their identity. This project, therefore, aims to depict this solitude of the self within a couple, as opposed to depicting the shared self of the lover’s discourse. The project is made by working with real couples, merging their reality with staged scenes as a photographic performance of identity.