ASHLEY MIDDLETON

For my project, Through Others, I became specifically interested in the physicality of my ego. I intuitively selected thirteen people on the streets of Arles, France and New York City that I believed look like me. The act of selecting others, in which I identified myself, forced me to question the reason for my choices. It was a process I’ve never participated in and I found it created a slew of questions I’m still not able to answer. I chose mostly white women with freckles between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. With a few men in the mix I started to wonder what it is about self-identification that relates to our everyday behaviors: what is the relationship between how we self-identify and how we choose our community? Is there a visual system that is tied to our choices? If so, what kind of limitations of self are brought on by this system?

The installation includes three (of the thirteen) portraits, which hang from the ceiling facing outward, and have videos rear projected from the center. The videos include all thirteen individuals I believe look like me and change every thirty seconds, putting the static images at a constant state of unrest. Gestalt I is a large print that hangs nearby the installation. It is a portrait of a new identity produced by compiling all thirteen individuals together. The series Through Others does not offer a solution to my questions concerning identity, but rather is the first part of an infinite sequence in which I will repeat the process every five years to see how my understanding (and value) of self changes. Each process will be completed with a portrait, titled Gestalt, and listed in numerical order to visually reveal the process of self-perception over time.