Under the Gaze is a research-driven artistic project that investigates the gaze as a relational, political, and perceptual construct. Drawing from feminist theory, phenomenology, and visual culture, it explores how seeing and being seen shape identity and power.
Combining qualitative methods—body-mapping, interviews—and interactive installations using one-way mirrors and eye-tracking, the project reimagines surveillance tools as reflective, participatory devices.
What does it mean to look, and what does it mean to be seen? This project explores the notion of gaze and the act of gazing with regard to (self)-perception, bodily perception, and performativity. Perception is never pure perception, it is a dynamic narrative process that is subject-dependent. We never perceive the world as it is, but we interpret, frame and construct our worlds and realities based on prior knowledge, cultural upbringing, surrounding power structures and memory. Gaze is not just an act of looking, it is power dynamics, introspection, memory, world-building and narration. It is hard to think of (self-)perception without gaze and gaze without perception, as they complement and feed off of each other. Bearing in mind the intricacy of the matter at hand, the project and the final work focus on the phenomenology of the perception and uses the gaze as an epistemological device, a way of thinking and experiencing the world, that plays an irrefutable role in shaping the way we perceive ourselves and others.

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