During 2012–2014, nearly 3,000 people participated in the Contemporary Self-Portraits project’s workshops, where the participants were able to present their own portraits and life stories. The self-portraits from the workshops were created in the form of photographs, autobiographical texts, collages, sculptures, audio recordings, medals, characters, drawings and shadow art.

Our hope is that these publications will inspire readers to familiarise themselves with work in self-portraiture and autobiographical themes. We further hope that readers will attempt to experiment with their own self-portraits or use the methods discussed here in their own work with their target groups.

The project was funded by the EU Culture Programme and coordinated by the Turku University of Applied Sciences, Arts Academy in cooperation with our partners from Bildmuseet (Umeå, Sweden), Estonian Arts Academy (Tallinn, Estonia), ISSP – International Summer School of Photography (Riga, Latvia) and National College of Art and Design (Dublin, Ireland).

Contemporary Self-Portraits publications comprise six different parts by the five partners:

(1) Contemporary Self-Portraits – The Article Collection (a link to the Article Collection is in the guide of the publication below) (2) Arts Academy / Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland) (3) Bildmuseet (Umeå, Sweden) (4) Estonian Academy of Arts (Tallinn, Estonia) (5) ISSP – International Summer School of Photography (Riga, Latvia) (6) National College of Art and Design (Dublin, Ireland)