Resting is a series of portraits featuring self-performed “resting” faces of school employees. While photographing my colleagues for this project, I noticed that some struggled to fully relax their expressions.

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Teaching, particularly elementary teaching, requires a constant projection of warmth, patience, and emotional regulation. Because education is also a female-dominated profession, these expectations overlap with broader social expectations placed on women to appear pleasant and accommodating. Through this series, I wanted to explore the tension between authentic emotional states and socially performed expressions, particularly how neutral faces are interpreted differently across gender.