Laís Pontes became a photographer to better understand herself. "I use performance and photography to search for my own voice and create a work full of freshness and sensitivity. How I feel, all the confusion in my mind and how I relate to the world are my inspiration at the moment," she explains in an interview with Lenscratch.She based her latest project, the series of portraits Born Nowhere, on the personality theories of psychologists Carl Rogers, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, and Abraham Maslow. According to them, every individual is the result of three factors combined: who the person is, who they want to be, and who others believe they are. So Pontes set out to prove that theory in the most appropriate forum we have today for this type of social analysis: social networks. More specifically, Facebook, where people display themselves as they want to be perceived and are judged by their network of peers on the quality of their posts and vacation photos.In 2010, she moved from Fortaleza to New York to study at the International Center of Photography and begin work on the project. Using herself as model, she began taking self-portraits that were later digitally modified to alter her physical and aesthetic features, thus creating several different “characters.” The images were then posted on Facebook and people were invited to describe each one. "The description of this new person/persona is influenced by what psychoanalysts call 'projection,’ that is, the viewer's background, reality and fantasies," she explains. Below is an example of the outcome of several descriptions ascribed to one photo.
Anna, 23 years-old, mixed race, rock and roll, Hells Angels' biker, a lot of trouble. Tattoo artist, on-and-off relationship with Mike, a successful guy—entrepreneur and free spirit like her, loves to be outdoors and play sports, plays the acoustic guitar a bit. She will marry him because he is fun and they both like to party and be provocative. She's self-confident but is not afraid to be vulnerable.In her search for self-discovery, Pontes created several women. The curious thing is that in that process the work developed, became popular and began to keep her busy with duties and appointments surrounding its spread and success. It seems that in order to find herself, she ended up getting a bit lost in her own creation. On one of the posts recently on the project's Facebook page, after several descriptions for a photo, a friend joked by posting a description of Pontes herself, "29 years-old, Brazilian, lives in NY. Sporty kind, loves to work out and loves photography. Misses family and friends a lot. High spirit, fun and very outgoing." And the photographer then answers: "Thank you for reminding me of who I am! I think I needed that!"