Thesis Title: A Study on The Representation of The Abject in Self Portraits of Contemporary Photographers
By: Yasaman Alipour
Supervisor: Dr.Mehdi Moghimnejad
Degree: MA
Course of Study: Photography
August 2019
Abstract
Julia Kristeva believes that one of the most important stages of becoming a subject is a process called Abjection. Abjection is a process in which a person throws away anything representing “other” to I. Kristeva calls this “other” the abject. Because of it’s provocative nature, the abject has been used by many artists specially members of protesting movements. Many contemporary photographers used the abject in their self-portraits. The main goal of this thesis is to understand how the abjection theory is applicable to contemporary photographer’s self-portraits. In order to reach this goal, first a description of the abjection theory and the way it was applied in art and literature is given. After that, a brief history of self-portraits and how the abject was represented in some of the contemporary photographer’s Photographs is provided. In the last part self-portraits of 3 photographers is thoroughly discussed. This study concludes that these artists represent concepts like abject in order to challenge the symbolic order in the society.
Key Words: Julia Kristeva, Abjection, Abject, Contemporary Photographers, Self Portraits