Posts tagged: Reflective Dye Sublimation

Mishka Henner is interested in making art that ‘challenges conventional perspectives and encourages viewers to reconsider their relationship with the world, technology, and the consequences of human activities’. He produces books, film, photographic and sculptural works, often repurposing imagery sourced online.

Selfie offers a different kind of self-portrait, using a highly reflective surface that acts like a black mirror. The camera has zoomed out far beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing the viewer to simultaneously ‘see themselves, the world, and everything they’ve ever known, all in one frame’.

The work is inspired by a quote from Apollo 8 Astronaut Jim Lovell, seeing Earth on the first manned orbit around the moon in December 1968: “At one point I sighted the earth with my thumb – and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet. I realised how insignificant we all are if everything I’d ever known is behind my thumb.”

Henner was born in Brussels, Belgium and lives and works in Greater Manchester. He has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, and from 2023-2024 was artist in residence at the University of Salford’s Energy House 2.0 research facility, in partnership with the Art Collection, Open Eye Gallery, and Castlefield Gallery.

The image above is an install shot from the exhibition.

Photographs on this page courtesy of Sam Parker, UoS Art Collection Team Assistant