Jésula Toussaint Visser aka Zuzou (2000) is a self-taught starting photographer who’s work is focussed around self-portraiture.

Graduated cum laude in 2021 with a BA in contemporary dance (Codarts, Rotterdam), photography also became a part of the mediums she uses in dedicated attempts at self expression. She approaches the creative process from a more personal point of view, translating into portraits without color. 

Colour has always been a loaded word as she navigates through the confronting and complex nature it appears to have in her life.  She finds comfort in the lack of colour as she works mostly in black and white, appreciating the certain simplicity it carries. Yet slowly color finds its way into her work. Still within a frame as she chooses to explore the monotone or two tone landscape of colours, to honour and warrant the same simplicity she found in black and white.

She invites those who see her work to read them like a visual diary. Pointing towards the future in an act of hope while simultaneously representing the ‘remains from versions of herself that have already fled’.

“When I was seventeen I was lucky enough to visit an exhibition, in this enormous reputable museum, of a photographer who’s work just consisted out of selfportraits. I remember thinking how truly amazing it was for a full exhibiton to be standing on only portraits of a black woman, and most importantly on her own account! The empowerment I felt right there is what has carried me every day since then.“

Based in The Netherlands