Trust Me

In her ongoing series Self-Portraits While Buried, Jenny Calivas pays homage to artist Ana Mendieta’s Silueta Series (1973–80) and broader traditions of feminist image-making. In Calivas’s photographs, the culmination of a larger performance, a wired timer shutter remains visible in the artist’s hand. Although her collaborators play a critical role in both the burial process and in helping to frame the image, Calivas retains control of the camera and how her body is depicted on film. The artist’s agency is central. Through the meditative ritual of returning to and emerging from the earth, Calivas seeks to reclaim and rediscover her relationship to the natural world.