Unprofessional
Matilde Søes Rasmussen
Disko Bay
English and Danish
Hardcover
Edition of 600
240 Pages
210 x 280mm
2021
ISBN 9788797052082
Through photography and text Matilde Søes Rasmussen explores her time as a professional model in Asia. Having spent more than a decade in the industry, she now turns her attention to questioning its power structures, beauty ideals, and objectification. Unprofessional is a playful and crushing book that moves between documentary and fiction, performance and real life, wherein Rasmussen uses her own body to investigate how these structures impact her self-image and identity.
The book is a mix self-portraits alongside still lifes, landscapes, and photographs of friends and acquaintances. We see fruits cut in half, a naked back and the model sitting lost in a studio wearing a green fur and swim flippers. A kaleidoscope of colour and form envelops her as she shapeshifts through the pages: hair spiky then slicked; makeup natural then extreme; naked then exquisitely dressed. Short texts, almost like diary entries, punctuate the book, revealing Rasmussen’s first-hand experiences and reflections. Unprofessional is an attempt to find meaning in a career as a model, as an ever-changing character, and as something that is constantly being assessed, bought and admired.
(source: https://www.diskobay.org/books/unprofessional/)
About the Artist
Matilde Søes Rasmussen is a Danish-Swedish artist based in the world 🌐 born and raised in the Jutlandic countryside village Alling (DK) in 1990. Her work moves freely between photography, writing, filmmaking and publication, and she holds a BFA in Fine Art Photography from HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg (SE). In 2021 she released her debut book Unprofessional which was shortlisted for the Photo-Text Book Award at the Rencontres D’Arles that same year, and received the Swedish Arts Grants Committee Associations working grant. She’s part of the ongoing collaboration Macho Bengal with artistic partner Marie Flarup Kristensen.
matildesoes.com
(source: https://www.matildesoes.com/bio-and-cv)
About the Publisher
Disko Bay is an independent photobook publisher based in Copenhagen. They work closely together with photographers, designers and print makers too curate and craft unique books in limited print runs. Their aim is to promote Danish photography on the international scene and in the realm of photobooks. Disko Bay was founded in 2018 by Stinus Duch as the first photobook publisher in Denmark.
diskobay.org
(source: https://www.diskobay.org/about/)
