London

2021

Photography is a form of provocation, as the camera, like a weapon, aims at the subject, ready to trigger the shutter at any moment. This invasive act creates a self-other gaze relationship of opposition between the photographer and the subject. However, most people also instinctively feel the urge to escape from the lens.

When I do street photography, I often switch back and forth between the viewfinder and reality to capture and document randomly encountered people. This sometimes makes me feel a sense of unfamiliarity with reality, and I may unconsciously develop a subconscious tendency to objectify others, engaging in 'Othering.' To avoid such behaviour, I decided to photograph sculptures in art galleries, treating my camera as a weapon aimed at them. This also illustrates that when the subject does not gaze at the object, and the object is not gazed upon by the subject, this subject-object relationship ceases to exist, and the relationship between self and other disappears.