Giulia Bersani began taking candid self-portraits and nudes when she was 18 – here, she tells us more about her ongoing series of intimate, dreamy images
From time immemorial, artists from all mediums have long been drawn to self-portraiture. Michaelangelo made an appearance in his famous fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Hitchcock couldn’t resist cameos in most of his films. So what lies at the heart of artists’ enduring desire to create images of themselves?
Photographer Giulia Bersani has been taking self-portraits since her earliest experiments with a camera. Initially, this was for pragmatic reasons – she was the only consistently available model. Gradually, she also realised this practice created an opportunity to explore her own identity and psyche. She began to think of these pictures as “precious documents” for their ability to offer insight into her interiority, as well as her physicality. The Milan-born photographer tells Dazed, “I think self-portraits have an extra value since the presence and essence of the artist is double.”
Dating back to 2011, her ongoing series of self-portraits express the photographer’s fervent curiosity about her experiences, her identity, and the world around her. Often staggeringly beautiful, sometimes melancholic, Bersani’s pictures feel confessional and incredibly intimate. She describes them as the “rawest and realest” of all her work. Many of the portraits are nudes, which amplifies the intense sense of how vulnerable Bersani dares make herself. Nothing is hidden – be it pleasure, heartache, insecurity, fear, loss, passion. Sometimes the presence of the camera is explicit and she meets our gaze. Other times, we feel much more like voyeurs spectating on an unaware Bersani as she eats dinner or rides in the back of a car.
Below, we chat with Giulia Bersani about what obsesses her as a photographer, why she turns the camera on herself, and the experience of making such intimate work public.
What period do the pictures span? And what led you to turn the camera on yourself?
Giulia Bersani: I started to take self-portraits as soon as I started taking photos – in 2011, I was 18 years old – and I shot the last one yesterday. The first reason I turned the camera on myself was very simple; I wanted to photographically exploit my free time and I was often the only available model. Over time, I started to notice the value of those pictures as a precious document and the value of this process that gave me some space to work on myself in the research of who I am.
Are these self-portraits staged or spontaneous? Could you please tell us a bit about the process?
Giulia Bersani: They are very diverse, but most of them were taken in a spontaneous and real context. During my quotidian life, I keep observing myself and when I feel like there is something interesting in the moment I’m living – aesthetically or emotionally – I search for my camera, put it on a chair or a stack of books, or hang it on the wall with scotch tape, and I take a self-portrait of the scene as it was.
“The perfect photograph to me is very personal and connected to precious memories” – Giulia Bersani
As a photographer, what would you say are the recurring themes in your work? What obsesses you?
Giulia Bersani: Intimacy between people obsesses me… love, sex, motherhood etcetera. But also intimacy with myself – which you can find in those self-portraits – and intimacy between me and the people I photograph.
Thinking about your practice, what would you say are the guiding principles when it comes to making an image?
Giulia Bersani: I’m very quiet when I photograph; I move slowly and talk softly. The most important thing is to leave the subject enough space to open up; to take off the mask, and to leave myself enough time to observe everything without judging.
In your opinion, what elements make a perfect photograph? And how do you edit your work and make selections of which pictures to choose?
Giulia Bersani: The perfect photograph to me is very personal and connected to precious memories. I let my stomach and my instinct choose which pictures are the most powerful to me. It's often about the strength of gestures and colours.
“You can see my insecurities, my melancholy, my fears, but also the house of my parents where I grew up, my love stories, the story of my body” – Giulia Bersani
As a body of work, what do you think these self-portraits reveal about you as an artist and as an individual?
Giulia Bersani: This part of my work is probably the rawest and the realest part. You can see my insecurities, my melancholy, my fears, but also the house of my parents where I grew up, my love stories, the story of my body.
How does it feel to make public such intimate work?
Giulia Bersani: It feels good, it doesn’t scare me. I love transparency and I think those pictures are simple and true enough not to be misunderstood. It’s about self-representation. Since it’s my own vision about myself (as a woman), it’s precious.
Where, ultimately, do you intend this series to live?
Giulia Bersani: I would love, sooner or later, to see it both as a photobook and an exhibition. I’m waiting for the right occasion. It’s an ongoing series but I already collected more than 120 different self-portraits in 12 years so it would make sense for me to elaborate on them in a new shape at some point.
For updates on Giulia Bersani’s ongoing series of self-portraits and other work, you can follow her on Instagram.