Prosopagnosia

A woman in search of her face. Carlotta was born with prosopagnosia, a condition where she can never recognize faces. She spent her whole life trying to understand why she couldn’t seem to do what her mother could when they would see people she was supposed to recognize. She though that maybe if she just concentrated a little bit harder she would be able to see them and remember them but that was not the case.

Now she spends her days creating self portraits that all look completely different from one another but she knows that it is supposed to be her.

“Carlotta has never been able to recognize faces, neither the faces of other people, nor her own. Her condition, face blindness, has had a major effect on her life but has also given her a sense of purpose as an artist – to make self-portraits of the face she cannot picture in her mind.”

“If she catches sight of herself in a mirror, Carlotta will think, “the woman looking at me is in my nightie and in my flat, so it must be me”. She will also recognize her hair – it’s what happens underneath those grey curls that’s a mystery.”

 

Citation

Venema, Vibeke. “Prosopagnosia: The Artist in Search of Her Face.” BBC News, BBC, 16 Aug. 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53192821.