Today we sit down with photographer and academic Dr. Emma Phillips to explore the cultural, feminist, and personal dimensions of an activity that we hold close to our heart - the sexy selfie.

Emma is a photographer and researcher/lecturer in Visual Communication at the University of Canberra.

With twelve years of professional photography experience in Australian media, design, and advertising, and eight years teaching photography and visual communications across Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra, Emma brings a wealth of expertise to her work.

In 2022 she completed her PhD at the University of Technology Sydney on the intersection of sexy-selfies with class, and has been a finalist in the prestigious Australian National Photographic Portrait Prize.

In today’s discussion we talk about the cultural hierarchy between selfies and self-portraits, why we are motivated to take sexy selfies, the role of the male-gaze, the role of validation, aesthetic bias and class judgements, sexy selfies as erotic communication, photographer/model power-dynamics, masculinity and the male-selfie, creating environments for artistic exploration, how selfies can help foster community and so much more.

Guest Links

Emma’s PHD

Emma’s Website

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