A Democratic Portrait interrogates the photographic portrait as a tool of identification, authority, and belonging. It considers how images govern social and civic recognition and asks who is permitted visibility.
Using a Polaroid Studio Express, the same camera used for passport photos, Lathigra makes images of subjects from across society: refugees, family, friends, cultural figures, and public officials. Each portrait treats the sitter with the same visual authority, creating a uniform field where social hierarchies are suspended.
By standardising pose, gaze, and format, the work exposes the structures embedded in identification photography. Expression and stance become subtle negotiations of presence, autonomy, and power. The photograph is not a likeness but a reflection of the mechanisms by which images confer recognition.
The series functions as an egalitarian assemblage. Every image carries equal weight, removing aesthetic or celebrity hierarchies. The uniformity foregrounds the apparatus of portraiture itself rather than individual subjectivity.
A Democratic Portrait interrogates the systems that mediate visibility and recognition.
How do images confer belonging? How are identities legitimized through representation? What happens when the apparatus of the portrait is stripped to neutrality?
The work extends the ongoing investigation into identity, memory, and representation across visual systems.