Cosmic Surgery

source: aintbadmagazine

Originally from Germany, Alma Haser is currently based in London, UK. She received her photographic degree from Nottingham Trent University in 2010. She recently made the moved to London to establish herself as an artist / photographer. Her most recent series titled, Cosmic Surgery, combines the tangible photograph and the subject with the photograph itself. This facet of the images creates distinctive stages. Alma as the viewer of the subject, the origami construction, and then the reconstruction is then photographed thus creating a new aspect of the subject’s identity.

‘Cosmic Surgery’
The series has three distinct stages. Firstly Alma photographs her sitter, then prints multiple images of the subjects face and folds them into a complicated origami modular construction, which then gets placed back onto the original face of the portrait. Finally the whole thing is re-photographed.

Origami is very meditative, you can get lost in the world of folding for hours. It is also extremely delicate and fragile, so by giving each geometric paper shape somewhere to sit within the final image, the origami has been given a backbone.

There is something quite alien about the manipulated faces, as if they belong to some futuristic next generation. In these portraits the children become uncanny, while their parents are seen in a more familiar moment.

With the simple act of folding an image Alma can transform each face and make a sort of flattened sculpture. By de-facing her models she has made their portraits into her own creations.
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source: miniclickcouk
Born in Germany in 1989, Alma Haser moved to the UK in 1995 and gained a BA in Photography from Nottingham Trent University before moving to London in autumn 2011. Her shortlisted portrait, taken in her house in South London, is of friends Luke and James who have known each other since they were 12. Struck by their hairstyles, an East London bowl cut, Haser initially planned to take separate portraits but it was difficult to get them to focus so decided to photograph them together. She says ‘I asked them to sit on a tiny, wobbly coffee table, forcing them to almost cling onto each other. I wanted to exaggerate their amazing size difference, by making Luke slouch and James sit bolt upright. The title is designed to help the viewer make up his or her story about what is going on.’ Haser’s work has been included in over 10 exhibitions internationally, her work received third place in the People’s Choice for Foto8 Summer Show 2012, Fourth prize in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and she has just won the Magenta Foundation Bright Spark Award 2013.
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source: haserorg
Alma Haser graduated in 2010, completing her BA (Hons) in Photography in Art Practice at Nottingham Trent University.
Bilingual in English and German, she comes from a family steeped in arts and the creative industries, both in the UK and in Europe. Aged 13, she accompanied her mother and younger brother on a round-the-world trip, culminating in a six-month stay on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. Travel continues to be one of her great passions.
After exploring with self-portraiture, and then moving to London Alma started to create a strong body of portraits which have got her a lot of recognition. Chosen by the British Journal of Photography as one of the four best graduates of 2010, her work has featured in 10 exhibitions internationally. Her Cosmic Surgery series received third place peoples choice award at the Foto8 Summer Show 2012 and ‘The Ventriloquist,’ a portrait of two friends, was shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London. She has also been chosen as 2013 Magenta Foundation’s Bright Spark Award.