States of an Eating Self

States of an Eating Self captures a shared meal through micro-gestures and in-between moments. By unsettling polished imagery, the project reframes eating as an intimate act of attention, where embodied presence quietly resists gendered norms.

 States of an Eating Self is a photographic series born from a collective meal conceived not as an event to document, but as a lived situation unfolding over time. Centered on one of our most fundamental yet socially regulated acts – eating – the project explores how bodies and faces negotiate vulnerability, control, and presence once released from the pressure of “perfect” representation.

Shot in a neutral, studio-like setting through a slow, uninterrupted tracking shot, the work isolates close-cropped views of expressions and interactions often dismissed as flawed or unpublishable. Sequenced as a continuous flow of images, the series carries a fragmentation of time where gestures accumulate. Pauses, slips, and fleeting micro-expressions become visible, revealing transitional states usually erased by dominant visual regimes: moments where control falters and embodied presence emerges.

Working primarily with women and gender-diverse people, the project considers how eating, a daily act shaped by gendered expectations, becomes a site of negotiation between internal experience and external gaze. Rather than privileging composition or polish, the series values rhythm, micro-movement, and relational presence. Drawing on ideas of glitch as a space of liberation, where continuity breaks and complexity appears, the work reframes imperfection as a place of attention and possibility.

The photographic series later expanded into Welcome to Our Table, a participatory performance created in collaboration with Déborah Claire and Kadia Doumbouya, where the act of eating returned to real time as a shared, witnessed situation. This performance generated an archive of sound and moving images that is currently being developed further, allowing the project to evolve beyond the photographic frame and into spatial and audiovisual forms.

Across its iterations (wall display, immersive installation, and live performance) States of an Eating Self remains grounded in the same inquiry: how can an everyday gesture reveal what is usually controlled, corrected, or kept invisible? The project invites a slowed-down encounter with bodies in transition, opening space for attention, nuance, and embodied presence beyond normative expectations.