Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

21st Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
Untitled from Scandal

Scandal: On the perception of the self through the body. Years ago I was on a school trip with my ex classmates from middle school and since I was fat - and I may did not respond to the standards of beauty of the time - they undressed me by force and took photos of me. That episode of bullying led me to an identity crisis that also occurred in eating disorders and depression. While I don’t feel like blaming how a middle-schooler of the time could act or think, I couldn’t recognize my mirror image for a lot of time, always thinking I had to be thinner or the completely opposite of what I looked like in the past. With Scandal, a work of self-portraits, I enhance this sense of “body-alienation” to surpass the feeling of disgust I had while looking at myself. Working in a performative way, I use masks, costumes and my own body to reach different personas and false identities, in aims to accept every kind of body and perception of the self, finally freeing myself from the restraining beauty standards we’re still trapped in today’s world. While I was attacked for only being me, now I welcome you to my inner world, changing my body however I desire, becoming whole new personas that I bring to life not only as acts of Mise-en-scene, but as an invite to destroy what people try to restrain in categories or blind surfaces: the beauty and the perception of the self through it. I do this to heal from a scar in my mind that often resurfaced during the years, leading me to find accommodation through various dependencies.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 05.2023
Date Uploaded: 09.2023
Photo Location: Rome, Italy
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Copyright: © Matteo Ribet