Rita
Lino

SELF AS SITE

PERFORMANCE

Rita Lino is a Portuguese visual artist, photographer, and performance artist based in Berlin whose practice explores the body as both subject and tool through intimate self-portraiture that blurs the boundaries between photography and performance. Born in 1986 in Portugal, Lino began her photographic journey by freely exploring the construction of the still image without preconception, developing a deeply personal visual language that examines identity, sexuality, and self-perception through staged performances before the camera. Her work is characterized by its raw honesty and fearless self-analysis, transforming the body into a site of investigation where she simultaneously occupies the roles of photographer, model, performer, subject, and image. Her photobooks Entartete (2015) and Replica (2021) trace over a decade of self-portraits that challenge contemporary conventions around representation and identity, with Replica marking a deliberate stripping away of identity markers to present the body as pure form and image. Beyond her personal practice, Lino has collaborated with international brands including Courrèges and Calvin Klein, and her work has been featured in exhibitions and artist residencies internationally, establishing her as a distinctive voice in contemporary photography and performance art.