FUTURE PROJECTS

2026

Rosa Franco Mendoza

Self-Portraits —

The age we appear to be

This project begins with a question: how old is a face, really?

I want to bring together and create a series of self-portraits taken throughout my life to observe how time manifests itself in my own image. Not as a chronological record of physical changes, but as an exploration of something much more subjective: the age we appear to be and the age we feel.

There are times when our face seems much older than our age would suggest. At other times, perhaps surprisingly, it seems younger. Fatigue, joy, sadness, illness, desire, confidence or uncertainty can transform our appearance.

The project also invites us to play with this perception: disrupt time, bring different self-portraits face to face, and ask ourselves how old we think each image is before we know when it was taken.

Thus, self-portraiture ceases to be merely a representation of myself and becomes a play between time, appearance, identity and emotional state.

An archive of my own image, to see that a face doesn't always show the age we are, but the age we are going through.