Face You
 Analog photography, lambda print
Format 75 x 92 cm 
2003 

 First impression. A broken doll with a large hole in the back, which was thrown into the street. Little by little, we can see a mirror that does not reflect anything. A tabula shaved in the shape of a face. Slowly we detect a real body, that of a young body. A woman holding a mirror in front of her face for protection.
But what is she protecting herself from? From us? With our eyes. We stick to the old adage that the face is the mirror of the soul. Then we say to her. Give us your face! Unveil your soul! She resists. To abandon her mirror would be to abandon her dreams.  

© Concept, art direction, photography, postproduction: Dorothée Elisa Baumann
I thank my friend artist Emmanuelle Bayart for performing in this photography.

The New Photographic Portrait. Text by Nathalie Herschdorfer and William A. Ewing, former curator and director of Musée d'Elysée. Excerpt from the book Faces: The new photography portrait, Thames + Hudson, UK (English, French, 2006)