I’ll Do My Own Lashes is based on one of the most frequently uttered phrases in the backstage of fashion shows. It’s the minutes before the models step onto the catwalk and teams of assistants are getting them ready for that moment. Large groups of makeup artists, hair designers, and assistants – up to seven people at once – suddenly descend on the model. One of the things they do is curling her eyelashes with steel tweezers, a very intimate and sensitive process that takes place millimetres from the eye itself. It is at this moment that the model utters the sentence that she prefers to do her own eyelashes because she does not trust strangers.

Lena Knappová (*1995) is a photographer who has been working in fashion, music, and photography for almost ten years. At the age of 21, she moved to France, where she has lived and worked ever since. Mainly active in the environment of Paris Fashion Week, Knappová focuses on documenting the backstage of fashion shows. Her work is a brilliant depiction of many intimate physical moments, controlled chaos, rawness, work, and dedication. The artist’s approach is based on classic documentary photography, with the ability to capture the “unique moment;” at the same time, there is a flair of punk and street culture in it, which contrasts with the refined environment of high society priding itself on its refined taste for fashion design. For her work over the past decade, Lena Knappová was awarded first place in the Czech Grand Design competition as Photographer of the Year 2024.

The invasion of personal space, expressions of mistrust, self-defense, and protection against possible harm – these are some of the main themes that will be explored in the exhibition. She too does her own “lashes.”