Duchenne’s Smile.
In 1862, French neurologist Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) pioneered the field of the study of emotion - using electricity to stimulate, and photography to document and categorise - human facial expressions.The concept of a ‘genuine’ smile, or a ‘Duchenne’ smile - where both eye and mouth muscles are used - were named after him.
Duchenne’s Smile critically explores the historical framing of the face as a standard and universal canvas that expresses our interior condition to the exterior world. The ceramic objects are reinterpretations of Duchenne’s original photographic material gathered on his test subjects. The objects are enclosed, visible only through optical lenses, providing a close-up intimate gaze. Yet, they also only offer a distorted glimpse from a single angle at a time—questioning whether the face truly is a window to the soul?
What do we see when looking at their frozen smiles and screams now, 165 years later? Can we ever know a person’s essence when looking at them from the outside?
