TOW #2: Petra Collins' "Selfie"

Petra Collins' "Selfie"

Petra Collins, a 23-year-old Canadian artist and photographer, is well-known by those immersed in "teen art girl" culture. Her work has been featured in online magazines like Rookie and i-D, both of which cater primarily to teenage and college-aged girls. Collins is the founder and curator of The Ardorous, an online photographic collection of work by female artists. In her collection "Selfie", she displays the ways in which social media has altered one's sense of self and ultimate perception of reality. Her description of this collection on her online portfolio states that the series is "examining selfie culture in teenage girlhood and the power for young women to create, curate, and distribute their own imagery." Her photography is a form of social commentary, and her portfolios often start powerful conversations about topics relevant to today's world.

"Selfie" is a project that started in 2013 and is ongoing. Collins updates the collection occasionally with new photos as one of her many ongoing photography portfolios. Over the years, she has amassed a gigantic following of teenage girls and female artists, many of whom follow her across several websites and media sources. Her work pervades nearly every aspect of feminist publications online. "Selfie" is a collection started at the peak of the world's most prevalent form of self-expression: the selfie.

Collins does not demonize the selfie in her work, like so many contemporary social photographers. Instead, she makes it into something saintly: an act of self-love and reflection. By making the girls' physical form the subject, rather than the selfie itself, Collins turns the focus away from the ways a selfie may manifest itself on the internet and instead focuses on its creator. The colored lighting used in the images in this collection makes the photos appear hazy and dreamlike. Collins pays reverence to the selfie in her use of lighting and form which sets up a dialogue between the viewer and the girls in the photographs. The backgrounds are often messy bedrooms, or everyday locations like a bathroom mirror or closet. She shows viewers that teenage girls are not ethereal, untouchable models - they are human.

Viewers may feel intrusive or uncomfortable looking at these images. They show a very intimate act of everyday life in the 21st century, and display the realities of what it means to put on a persona online. Collins ensures her viewers realize the importance of the selfie, and the ways in which it is very much an act of devotion and self-love, in her careful selection of images of real teenage girls in genuine environments.