Mauthausen, 1995 - Limited Edition of 6 Print

In 1988, in an attempt to overcome personal problems, Cristina Nunez began to take self-portraits in private. Giving shape to her emotions and revealing her presence to the world, enabling her to turn an uncompromising gaze upon herself, but also to project herself as she wanted to be, these images became a form of self-therapy through which she learned who she is. Someone to Love (1988-2011) brings together for the first time the best self-portraits that she made; The Self-Portrait Experience shares with viewers her method of interior exploration. These two paths now form the focus of her art. Born in 1962 in Figueras in Spain, Cristina Nunez lives and works in Chiasso, Switzerland. Up to the early 2000s, she produced photography books in which she addressed social questions through the portrait: Body and Soul (1994), To Hell and Back (1995), Heaven on Earth (1998), Io sono/I am (2000). On the margins of this public body of work, she made self-portraits as a form of therapy; since 2005, this has been the focus of her photographic and video work, as well as of The Self-Portrait Experience workshops that she has been conducting. Her works have been presented at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (1997), Palazzo Reale in Milan (1997), the Rencontres d'Arles (1998), the Centre National de l'Audiovisuel in Luxembourg (2008), the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan (2008), Festival FotoGrafia in Rome (2009), the Private Space Gallery in Barcelona (2010), the Mois de la Photo in Montreal 2011, Luova gallery in Helsinki (2012), H2O gallery in Barcelona (2012), MUSAC (2013) and Sponge Arte Contemporanea (2013). In 2010 she was a finalist (receiving an honourable mention) for the New York Photo Festival Awards. In 2011, she was showing her works in "Second Lives. Jeux masques et autres Je" at Casino Luxembourg, as part of the Mois Europeen de la Photographie. In 2012 her video Someone to Love obtained the Celeste Prize and her project But Beautiful obtained the Prix de la Critique 2013 at the Voies Off Festival in Arles.