At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began a series using self portrait as a tool to investigate my mental state. I was diagnosed with PTSD and started recording my days on Polaroids through Emulsion Lifts. I had the impetus to transform the image with my own hands. If I don’t like an idea, why don’t I like it? And if I deconstruct her whole, what does she become? The result has been therapeutic. Deconstructing a self-portrait was the beginning of a path of deep self-discovery, as I felt the need to overflow into a physical, material format, feelings, and sensations that could not be spoken. Hybrid Photography is a revolution as it appears at a personal, intimate moment of usually pain and discomfort and naturally evolves into a healing place. Deconstruct to reconstruct.
About the artist:
Bruna Valença is a 31-year-old photographer and visual artist. Her production is focused on self-portraits based on studies about the body and her psyche, relating the transience of her mental states with Hybrid Photography, where the loss of control and the freedom to make mistakes become tools in her process.
