Self-portraiture; Myself and That Woman

Reading the words of John Szarkowski in Lee Friedlander’s photobook titled “Self-portrait” where he mentioned, “the obvious advantage of the self as subject matter for an artist’s work is its easy accessibility. It is always at hand and spares the artist the trouble and expense of extra tickets, overweight fees, model releases and double rooms", I couldn't agree more with his statement. Nonetheless, I, too, argue that although accessibility is almost zero effort-making when using oneself as the subject, ‘the self’ is not always in a ready condition. 

When I first had this intuition, I asked my shy, non-selfie, non-camera-friendly self if ‘this self’ is ready to be photographed. This question lingers in my mind as I am not photographing my everyday self for this self-portrait series. The ‘me’ that I self-photographed is an embodiment of my ancestors, my mother, my women of the Malay archipelago who, during the 18th and 19th centuries, lived by the river, near the woods, working as farmers, or rubber tappers, wearing ‘kain batik’ (the traditional dress) and “kurung” or “kebaya” (traditional blouse) with “selendang” (shawl) on the head as their daily wear.

Then another question came into my mind as I continued reading Szarkowski, “the obvious disadvantage of self as subject is the fact that it inevitably raises the issue of conflict of interest. When the artist is also the subject, wearing two hats at once, is he (she) first of all the servant of historic and artistic justice, or the agent of self-advancement?” I think it's the meeting and intersection of both. The self in the portrait is not myself, but a character who lived long time ago, not desiring any attention, but here stood a 'self', that is, in persona, having all the attention given by the self-timer mode camera and later, the viewers of the end result. I thought it is also an experience of making a history of history, repeating the memories. 

This self-portraiture series shot around parks in London was driven by the intention to embody and feel the emotion of the women of Malay archipelago during the years of colonisation when Malaya was called the British-Malaya land in 1824-1957. The camera was placed on a tripod and set into self-timer mode. I imagined it as the British photographer who told a Malay woman to stand still so he could photograph her. The woman might be in the middle of walking back to her house, or finding wood sticks to burn so she could cook rice at home, then later she would spend time telling stories to the children. With that imagination, I reacted with the face expression and body posture of a woman who might feel a little awkward, nervous and anxious, with many questions in mind (or probably having empty-minded), expressing but not knowing  or unsure how to express, thus the result of unimpressive look on the face or a non-expression face captured on photographs. That was probably the very first time she encountered a camera, a box she couldn’t afford to have, a machine she didn't know how it functioned.