Typology of Chairs

My photographic practice investigates what images are intended to say and do, as well as how they are generated and then disseminated. My work questions the imaginaries that insinuate and force the role of the body in society. This revision of popular images has motivated me to direct the camera towards my own body. A body that has been excluded from conventional narratives of what is considered to be a man.

Recently, I have been studying the idea of perspective and its relationship to the scale of my body and the world I inhabit. When investigating the body through photographic images it is impossible to ignore scale and its relationship to architecture and utilitarian objects. In my most recent series titled Typology of Chairs I decided to make self-portraits on different chairs found in the institutional environment.

In the series my body never adjusts to the utilitarian object and always remains in an awkward position. My feet do not reach the floor and my back does not adjust to the backrest. My body remains in constant instability and tension. The series of chair-to-chair portraits weaves a self-reflexive dialogue that hints at the judgments made regarding modern chair designs, highlighting how they implicitly reference certain body norms and expectations that exclude bodies like mine.

Typology of Chairs is a photographic project supported by Hamilton College and by the Center for Investigation and Creation and the Vice-presidency of Research at Universidad de los Andes.