2000 & 11 SELF-PORTRAITS

2000 & 11 SELF-PORTRAITS, an art project part of the Programme of Turku 2011 European Capital of Culture, managed to reach hundreds of residents of Turku. Self-portraits started to come about when residents of Turku grabbed pens, papers, paintbrushes and cameras and started to create in workshops as of autumn 2009. Several different communal art workshops produced pictures of the real people and about the time and the city they live in, which coincidently is also the time of the Capital of Culture 2011. Every residence in Turku has been welcomed to take part in these entrance fee free workshops.

The exhibition at Photographic Centre Peri consists of fictional self-portraits conceived in a workshop held by Magnus Scharmanoff and work created with Cristina Nuñez's Self-Portrait Experience method. The exhibition opening will be held on the 13th of October at 6 p.m.

In 2010 the students of photography at The Arts Academy of Turku worked on fictional self-portraits in a workshop mentored by photographer Magnus Scharmanoff. The work combines fictional elements ‒ e.g. myths, fantasy and the realm of stories ‒ to the creative process of creating a self-portrait.

Magnus Scharmanoff (b. 1964) is a world renowned photographer based in Helsinki. His work has been displayed in exhibitions in Germany, the United States and Ireland.

In 2008 Arts Academy at Turku University of Applied Sciences invited Cristina Nuñez to hold a series of workshops for the citizens of Turku. The pictures shown in the exhibition are the collaborative self-portraits Turku citizens have taken, alone in her studio, reacting to her instructions on the expression of difficult emotions, to enter the creative process and convert them into art.

"These self-portraits become the portrait of their Higher Selves. The hundred images produced suggest a glimpse on Turku citizens’ underlying emotions and carry other meanings still to be understood. I suggest the viewer to listen to the questions the images pose, regarding the inhabitants of the city of Turku." - Cristina Nuñez

Spanish artist Cristina Nuñez has been taking self-portraits for more than 23 years, as a sort of self-therapy. In 2004 Nuñez created her method The Self-Portrait Experience, a journey to explore all aspects of our lives with the use of the photo-self-portrait. Since 2005 she teaches her method in self-portrait workshops in prisons, mental health centres, schools, universities and companies in Italy, Spain, Finland, Luxemburg, Canada, UK and USA. Her autobiography Someone to Love has been published as a book by The Private Space Books in Barcelona and exhibited at the Mois de la Photo in Montréal, Canada.