Open Theme nominee

"Scopaesthesia" resonates strongly with my interests of mirroring and observing. In this series, I am both the photographer and the character in frame. Scopaesthesia presents images of very rigid posture with articulated, considered body language. This demonstrates the process of a young woman moving through a performative routine until she achieves this image and ideal, it’s so exhaustive that it becomes emotionless and quite detached, much like her dissociated perception of herself. Scopaesthesia interweaves elements of portraiture and still life to create works haunted by the events that preceded their taking. These images encourage the audience to consider and visualise narratively, what took place prior to these moments. This woman is looking at herself this way, coded by the male gaze and fed through social media, movies, and potentially relatives of older generations. In this series, she’s performing for the male gaze even when nobody is watching. She’s creating this perception of herself, watching herself perform for the male gaze before she even leaves her her house. In her eyes, if she hasn’t engaged in this performative role, she hasn’t succeeded the ideals and expectations of a "woman" under the male gaze. She struggles with this, and it scares her.

Emmason Tucker (She/Her) is a Boorloo-based, award-winning, multidisciplinary artist. Her creative position works across producing, directing, editing, and cinematography. She’s a forthcoming ECU graduate who has worked across genres and large-scale productions exploring themes of social change, queer theory, and philosophy. Her highlights include editing short-film, Letters (2022), and cinematography for LGBTQIA+ film Daydream (2020) and Coming Out (2021) Documentary, and editing/producing music videos for local bands Chelsea Elder and Streetlights, Don’t Listen to This (2021) and Murray Street (2022). Emmason has published/exhibited multiple photographic series titled Dysphoria (2021), Mirror (2022), and Scopaesthesia (2022) as lead photographer and creative designer.