BEST FOOT FORWARD
CONCEPT DESCRIPTION
WHO ARE YOU? *really
We are beholden to how we are perceived in Business. We use platforms like LinkedIn to project who we want to be in Business and in Life. But how does that influence who we actually end up becoming? Ultimately, this series asks the Viewer to answer for herself, “Who are you, really?”
Suzanne Heintz is an Artist who made a name for herself with "The Playing House Project," a 20 year series of self-portraits, featuring an artificial family of mannequins, where she plays out the role of the perfect Wife and Mother, living an even more perfect life imagined for her by culture's social norms.
With another ongoing series of "invented" self portraits, this new multimedia project calls into question social identity in business. These portraits take the form of LinkedIn profile photo and interview video, trying on an array of personas, designed for success. With these profiles, Suzanne reimagines herself embodying a multitude of Female Personas of Success. "What would my professional portrait look like if I were a Boca Raton Real Estate Agent? What if I were the CMO of a tech company in San Francisco? All of these people share identical DNA, but where is the 'real' me?"
With another ongoing series of "invented" self portraits, this new multimedia project calls into question social identity in business. These portraits take the form of LinkedIn profile photo and interview video, trying on an array of personas, designed for success. With these profiles, Suzanne reimagines herself embodying a multitude of Female Personas of Success. "What would my professional portrait look like if I were a Boca Raton Real Estate Agent? What if I were the CMO of a tech company in San Francisco? All of these people share identical DNA, but where is the 'real' me?"
In a world where bringing your “authentic self” to work is the new catch-phrase, how can you do that, when that is artifice? How is "authenticity" possible, when only a certain kind of authenticity is welcome - one that is filtered and self-censored to appeal to a target audience.
Suzanne's newest work is designed to take aim at the most highly regarded platform for Identity Manufacturing, and ask the individual to consider the level of counterfeit currency in their own persona.
BEST FOOT FORWARD: the curated personas of success - Launching on LinkedIn in 2023.