The Emerging Self: A Portrait Project 

The Emerging Self: a Portrait Project began with a simple but urgent question: Do we truly see and hear our children?

In the wake of the 2024 election, as headlines dominated the public imagination, I was struck by what was missing: the voices of youth. Not as future citizens, but as present observers — watching, absorbing, and forming their own understanding of a world they didn’t create but will inherit.

The project is a portrait-based collaboration that centers the inner lives of adolescents —those navigating the in-between years of 10 to 15, when childhood recedes and a new sense of self emerges. Through photography, interviews, and mixed-media transformation, this project offered students a platform to ask themselves: Who am I? What do I see? What do I want to say?

As an image-maker, I approached each portrait not as a static portrait, but as a mirror — an invitation to reflect. Richard, Sabot’s Atelierista for the older children,  conducted audio interviews using three open-ended questions that invited each student to speak freely and honestly. As the process unfolded over two weeks, it became clear: the final works could not exist without the students’ active transformation of their own image. Their participation was not supplementary —it was essential.

The portraits were returned to the students to be altered, reinterpreted, and reimagined. The transcripts of the interviews became the source material for their exploration. With guidance from Richard, the students engaged in a process of visual storytelling —layering meaning, revealing insight, and claiming authorship of how they are seen.

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