Fantasmatiska speglingar i fotografiet - Ett synliggörande av fantasmen i Lene Marie Fossens självporträtt

Abstract

The self-portraits of the Norwegian photographer Lene Marie Fossen (1986-2019) strikes the beholder with a great force of pain and sorrow in their expressions. The cruel reality and visuality of the psychiatric illness Anorexia Nervosa come across as something horrifying and tragic but what lies beneath the pure physical dimension of the subject in these photographs; photographs that can be said to hold a strong phantasmatic expression. The thesis aims to uncover the phantasmatic reflexions in one of Fossen’s self-portraits from the exhibition The Gatekeeper based on formal aesthetic components as well as semiotic signs. I want to adress how the phantasmatic expression is created and examine the contributors to the phantasmatic reflexion according to fundamental phantasmatic theory deriving from psychoanalysis.