Autobiography and the Self

Works that explore their maker’s lives or own stories, memories or experiences. These works will often explore the politics of the self as well as personal and political identity, and methods of making these parts of ourselves visible.

Beyond my doorstep, my queer femininity found itself, too, in a vulnerable passage through channels of middle school heteronormativity. My prepubescent body was exhausted by social mores, tired of being told to take up less space, being seen and not heard, systematically erased, edited out, ignored. All I wanted to do was move. But in the light of daytime, I felt trapped, always shifting uneasily under the weight of incessant white heteronormative observation.
Under this sort of surveillance, real innocence and childhood play seems suddenly unviable. Instead I searched for opportunities to immerse myself in the potential of refusal. I commenced to push back against the violence of this unconsented visibility, to take control of the eyes on me and how they interpreted my body.

Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism

You cannot see me from where I look at myself.

Francesca Woodman

The Personal is Political

unattributed