Presence

Our faces and bodies are the most persistently present, intimately known, and relentlessly scrutinized aspects of our existence. They serve not only as vessels of experience but as ever-visible surfaces onto which meaning, memory, and identity are projected. For women especially, appearance is deeply entangled with selfhood—both shaped by and subjected to a long history of visual and cultural expectation. As philosopher John Berger famously observed, “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” In this framework, a woman becomes both subject and object: performing for the gaze while simultaneously internalizing it. This dual awareness turns the body into a site of performance, surveillance, and reflection—an interface between the self and the social world.