The Labor Of Visibility
Film, 2025
Duration, 00:17:40
This experimental film invites viewers into an exercise that makes visible the power dynamics embedded in the act of looking through a camera lens. Participants are positioned in front of the camera, yet are asked to describe the person standing behind it—an inversion that disrupts the conventional subject–object relationship at the heart of visual perception and ethnographic representation.
Through this deliberate reversal, the film stages an embodied experience of the counter-gaze. It critically examines how visual and narrative frameworks shape subjectivities and one’s sense of self, while exposing the asymmetries that usually remain unseen. Moving between structured encounters and moments that echo everyday life, the film challenges entrenched hierarchies of vision and opens a space to imagine new ethics of representation, self-perception, and visual dignity.
The Burden Of Visibility // film Poster