Eva Beazar

This photographic series assembled found passport photos, scanned and enlarged. We use passport photos as an objective proof of who we are. They come in standardised sizes and dictate how we look into the camera. The nineteenth-century French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon used mugshots (his own invention) as a scientific method to study the facial characteristics of criminals. But the portraits in A Constructed Family (2016) can hardly be called scientific documents. This series includes passport photos of friends and family members, people who mean a lot to me. Photographs of several people are superimposed, focusing on the gaze. This method resulted in black-and-white portraits that almost seem to be charcoal drawings. Instead of factual registrations, we see hybrid persons, composed of several individuals who hold an important place in my life. In fact, these photographs are not even that far removed from the truth, after all identity is something intangible.