"Present Perfect" is a solo exhibition by Maya Smira. The multi-channel video installation depicts young women, who posed in front of the camera for seven minutes, without any aesthetic or functional conditions. This series of long portraits has its roots in the early days of photography, when subjects were required to pose for a long time due to the low level of sensitivity of the photographic plates.

Maya Smira’s installation addresses women’s continuing struggles against the norms and conventions dictated by Western historiography, which is essentially masculine. The power relations existing between the “surveyor” and the “surveyed” have a social ontological status.