“To Prove that I Exist”: Melissa Shook’s Daily Self-Portraits, 1972-1973
In December of 1972, photographer Melissa Shook (1939–2020) assigned herself a personal, artistic challenge: to take self-portraits every day for a year, in her own words, “to prove that I exist.” Struggling with self-identity and unreliable childhood memories, Shook undertook this conceptual exercise to see if she could remember to take pictures every day. The days she failed to photograph…
