Self Portrait 1950 1950

This is Claude Cahun's Self Portrait, taken around 1950, and what strikes me is the quietness and the stillness, and the balls. There's Cahun, posed on stone steps with their dog, with what looks like a croquet ball by their foot and another ball, perhaps a melon or a ball with stripes, on the step below. I wonder what Cahun was thinking, sitting there in their garden, dog nestled by their side. I like to imagine Cahun thinking about how to play with identity, and perhaps the balls act as props in a theatrical staging. It might have been an opportunity to explore the nature of self-representation. Cahun's engagement with photography was like a continuous process of investigation. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, you know? It's an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. And the self-portrait, it's a form of expression that embraces ambiguity.