Chris Becher

My consent-based photographic practice ponders on portraiture’s potential to convey the modes how personhood is shaped by individual and social histories. Preceded by a dialogical process with my protagonists, I strive to reintroduce complexity, beauty and intimacy into the representation of individuals, often compartmentalised by media and dominant discourses, and seldomly approached from a sensitive and poetic angle. Outlining society indirectly by its contours, my work draws from and transcends visual legacies such as social documentary, conceptual photography, vernacular culture, figurative portraiture, and (art) history. Semi-staged, semi-intuitive, my images fuse autobiographical and my protagonists’ lived experiences with an imaginary dimension. Against this backdrop I seek to portray the personal and powerful of my protagonists, interspersed with landscape and still life, and delving into the manifoldness of how we—as individuals on this planet—experience the world along the intersecting lines of our differences and more importantly commonalities. Growing up in a wide spectrum of modest, non-academic surroundings between mainly Germany next to extensive periods in North and Latin America informs my sensitivity for contemporary social identities, intercultural experiences and my anthropological eye for the everyday. Visual practices are crucial to cultivate alternative perspectives of coexistence through ethical and aesthetic choices. I consider my practice as a point of departure, a bridge where boundaries shift into beginnings in order to foster connection and engage inclusive and intersectional strategies in the production of visual representations and knowledge. As a practitioner and individual I maintain a keen awareness of my own position in-between contexts. Which is why my works include self-reflexive traces of my presence.