Åsa Johannesson was born in 1979 in Växjö, Sweden. After moving to London she studied Photographic Arts at University of Westminster where she graduated in 2006. A year later, in 2007, she started MA Photography at the Royal College of Art, where she graduated in 2009. Johannesson has received several awards for her work, which has been exhibited internationally and was also shortlisted for the Deutsche Bank Award 2009. She now lives and works in London.

Johannesson’s work explores notions of self and otherness, with a focus on gendered identity. The subjects in her work function as a form of doppelgängers: Traces of their identities become reflections of the artist herself. The image here is a space where identity is dismantled and also a sphere where identity is created. Fundamentally rooted in a desire for exchange of gazes, Johannesson’s work is informed by fantasies and fears surrounding questions of who we are, mentally and physically, and who we feel we are in the eyes of others.