Christopher Dick, Centretown News
A man takes a selfie with artist Magida El-Kassis, who is reflected in a mirror, at the Selfie exhibit. Three local photographers are embracing the power of the selfie in their collaborative exhibition at the Karsh-Masson Gallery at city hall. The exhibit, aptly named Selfie, features the self-reflective photographic and multi-media works of Magida El-Kassis, Jennifer Stewart and Olivia Johnston, with each artist setting out to explore the inner workings of the modern self-portrait.
“There’s just so much variety that different people will connect with,” says Meaghan Haughian, gallery co-ordinator at Karsh-Masson. “Even though they’re exploring the same issue, they’re just doing it in such different ways. The three of them work in very different ways and so I think that that’s going to appeal to a large audience.”
The exhibit taps into the pop culture phenomenon that has been popularized in recent years by the advent of the smart phone and the near universal photo-sharing applications such as Instagram and Facebook. With the ability to upload and share photos anywhere at any time, it was not long before this simple style of self-portraiture took the world by storm.
In December 2012, the word “selfie” was ranked ninth in one of Time Magazine’s year-end lists titled “Top 10 Buzzwords of 2012.” In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary named “selfie” the word of the year.
Selfies make up 30 per cent of all photographs taken by people between the ages of 18 and 24 according to a British poll commissioned by Samsung.
“By sharing it, by posting it on Instagram, on Facebook, on all these social media, you’re trying to get that connection with somebody else,” says Stewart. “You’re trying to illicit some sort of comment, a like or anything to make you feel like you’re not alone.”
But Stewart says her version of a selfie does not fit in such a narrowly defined definition. In her section of the exhibit, Stewart takes a more abstract look at the self-portrait, and how it can be used as a way to better understand oneself.
“A couple weeks ago my friends and I were going up to a cottage for a birthday and I thought, ‘Oh, what a perfect opportunity, we’re all going to be in one place, I want to bring a project,’ ” Stewart says.
One of her installments on display was made using only a disposable film camera and a tape recorder. She asked her friends to answer a series of personal questions before each snapped a selfie. Stewart then paired the corresponding answers with the pictures and put them on display for visitors.
However, Stewart adds, in order to make the experience as intimate as possible, visitors will have to put on headphones to hear the subjects’ answers.
Olivia Johnston utilizesw the more classic definition of a self-portrait.
“I suffered from pretty severe acne for quite some time, and so at that time I was taking a lot of selfies on my iMac,” says Johnston.
“This installation is comprised of about 60 of those selfies lined up in a row,” she explains. “So it is actually a really traditional selfie in the way people think about selfies, but it’s interesting because those images were never really intended for public consumption. It’s kind of like being able to creep on my life and see what I’m going through.”
The Karsh-Masson Gallery will be hosting Selfie until April 19. Johnston says that she hopes the exhibit will encourage Ottawa residents to think more critically about the expressive nature of the selfie.
“I think it’s telling of our culture that we’re all kind of . . . self-obsessed,” she says. “I think it’s more to do with people trying to reflect themselves in this digital mirror that we call the Internet.”