In Glamouring, I film the slow transformation of a man who, through make-up, becomes a woman. I wanted to capture this moment of passage, where the face ceases to be a fixed identity and becomes instead a space of projection, fiction, and representation. The time it takes to apply the make-up acts as a crossing: layer by layer, the original features disappear, allowing another being to emerge.

The sound is the original music of kathakali. The percussion roots the video in the physical and spiritual reality of this ancestral tradition — a form of theatre in which men have long embodied female figures too, and which has for centuries questioned the construction of roles and identities.

Today, this work resonates with contemporary reflections on gender and the fluidity of identity. Without illustrating any theoretical discourse, Glamouring simply shows that gender can be perceived as a construction — a play of signs, gestures, and gazes.

What interests me is that fragile instant when one no longer knows exactly who is appearing: the man, the woman, the performer, or the character. » — Tania Mouraud