tuula närhinen


SELF-PORTRAIT IN SNOW


The Self-Portrait in Snow (2025) sets out to explore facial pareidolia, the tendency to see ‘hidden faces’ in the natural world. Snow is harnessed to work as a spiritual medium that provides access to a speculative pictorial heritage.

Drawing on methods of visual empiricism, this playful project explores anthropometric survey techniques. The work introduces a collection of facial imprints, generated by pressing the visage tightly against snow cover.

Counterintuitively, instead of auto-portraits, these head dives into snow generated depictions of strangers surfacing from the bosom of the earth. In browsing this ghostly archive, Närhinen was surprised to find the spitting image of her bearded late father and, subsequently, she spotted more vivid likenesses to other family members as well.

Starting with the images of her ancestors to portrayals of her unborn children, this speculative record allows us to envision a pictorial phenotype of Närhinen’s ephemeral tribe.

Browse the project and see more images:

 

 

  • The Family Tree
  • Portrait in Landscape
  • Exhibitions



    • Following the head dive into snow, I recorded the result with a digital camera.
    In the series entitled the Portrait in Landscape, the facial imprint is set in dialogue with its immediate surroundings.
    The Family Tree includes 186 photographic records of snow imprints, generated by pressing the visage against the snow.
    The subversive archive yields the pictorial phenotype of Närhinen’s clan.

    Pareidolia refers to our propensity to see hidden faces or significant patterns in the natural world.