NOT FROM HERE
Felicia Simion is a 23-year-old photographer and retoucher based in Bucharest, Romania; she graduated from the Bucharest National University of Arts (Photography and Video department) in 2016 and she is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Bucharest. At the age of 13 she discovered photography, more precisely when she fell in love with the works of Magnum photographers, while being inspired at the same time by young emerging artists.
In the town of Deauville in France, Romanian photographer began a project based on her perceived otherness. In “Not From Here”, she wears a second skin and undertakes a different style of self-portraiture.“When I first arrived in Deauville, I didn’t know who I was in relation to the city,” explains Simion. “Was I a tourist? Was I an artist? Was I a woman? Was I Romanian? All I knew was that I was not from there.” Simion took her position as a stranger in the city, and expressed it through a strange/stranger binomial.
Wearing three costumes that covered her entirely, she visited spaces around the city. From the beach to the Pompeian baths — the suited Simion noted the way in which the public interpreted her otherness: “Through my second skin I could see the faces of the people who passed me — some smiling and perceiving me as a performer, while others — particularly the crowds — simply minding their own way. The costumes made me both visible and invisible.”
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