Afterimage by Nina Strand:

Right now, Instagram is the news outlet we rely on to follow the live streams of political events, and I'm struck by its importance, and also still pondering some people's use of it. I'm still thinking about a post from Katherine Diez, a Danish writer and Instagram influencer who became famous for her carefully curated selfies, accompanied by reflections on literature and feminism. In 2018, she sparked controversy with a nude selfie in bed, holding a book she was reviewing, with the caption ‘Going to bed with my job.’ But it's the fairytale-like post from a hotel in Paris, where Diez lay in a large bathtub reading Le Monde, with a quote from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar in the caption: 'Nothing can't be cured by a long, hot bath.' It was one of many beautiful photo-novels she shared.

Maintaining such a glamorous presence likely became a full-time job, but everything fell apart in January when Reddit users uncovered plagiarism in her reviews and Instagram posts. The criticism of Diez, was enormous, overshadowing scandals like the case of journalist Lasse Skytt, who plagiarized and even fabricated sources. Diez admitted to sloppy notes and missing citations, and soon after, she turned off the lights on her Instagram. Behind the scenes, it was revealed that she had signed a deal with People’s Press, and by October, a picture of the cover of her new book, I Egen Barm (In My Own Bosom), was posted.

The book reads more like an autobiography than a deeper analysis of her actions, with only a few pages devoted to the plagiarism itself. What remains is her strong need for validation. Diez might believe this personal backdrop explains her actions, feeling consumed by her role as a provocateur with a ‘fuck you all’ attitude. In her book Diez revealed intimate details about her relationship with Adam Price and other ex-boyfriends. The drama that has since unfolded between Diez and Price feels like a storyline from his TV series Borgen.

In an October interview on DR’s Genstart, Diez admitted she had lived in a different reality, always seeking recognition and not trusting that she was enough on her own. I’m still thinking about her meticulous planning of posts, she told the host about the one announcing her relationship with Price. She wanted to create an image of strength and invulnerability, with Price gazing off into the distance while she looked directly at the camera, as though signalling: ‘you can't reach us.’ As the host dryly pointed out, nothing about this image was left to chance.

Diez also writes about wanting to be an actress. The book itself could maybe be read as a performance, much like the platform that created her. She calls Instagram her theatre, but also her museum and playground. I think about another picture she posted with Price just weeks before everything fell apart, a picture he later removed from his profile. In it, he’s wearing an apron, leaning toward the camera holding a champagne bucket and a bottle under one arm, while pretending to taste a sauce from a pot in the other hand. It’s a peculiar pose. She stands beside him in an amazing dress, one hand leaning on the set table, a glass of white wine in the other. She’s in motion, her dress and stance reminding me of the dancing woman emoji in a red dress. She’s clearly dressed up—this is her stage. She had one dress for the photoshoot and another to move in for dinner. As I read further into the book looking for answers to why she plagiarised, this image begins to reveal itself. Although Diez doesn’t explicitly say so, the explanation might be the amount of effort she put into maintaining her curated platform.

Diez seems to have decorated her appearance just as she decorated her texts with the words of others. In one of the book’s brief chapters, she writes about how much she loves beauty. She points out that everything posted on social media, even the ‘imperfect’ moments, is curated. The word ‘imperfect,’ she writes, is the worst she knows. But is it not this striving for perfection, with our weaknesses always visible, that defines us all?

In a recent interview, Diez rhetorically asked, ‘How much more do you want?’ claiming she’d already delivered all her painful stories. All the ugliness. She doesn't know how to take any more responsibility for committing the same crime, which she believes has been committed by many before and alongside her, and says that she is certainly not the last to take other people's texts. From what she says, it seems that in her book, she confronts all her so-called imperfections. How I wish she could come to embrace these, seeing them not as flaws, but as part of the ongoing journey toward becoming better.

And now, after this appearance, Diez has slowly started posting again, in a carousel of images she writes that she has found herself again. I hope that's true. I'm thinking of something I read in a novel about ballet, that it's about pursuing perfection and also about pleasing, and how the protagonist didn't want that anymore, to pursue pleasingness. As Diane Arbus said, ‘There's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't avoid them knowing.’ Perhaps it's at this point - between perfection and imperfection - that Diez could have even more fun in her photo-novel life.

Afterimage is an ekphrastic series about that one image you see when you close your eyes, the one still lingering in your mind. We invite artists and writers to reflect on an image they can't shake. This column has been a part of Objektiv since our very first issue, originally titled Sinnbilde in Norwegian. As the sea of images continues to swell, the series explores which visuals linger and take root in today's endless stream - much like a song that plays on repeat in your head. Whether it's an image glimpsed on a billboard, a portrait in a newspaper, a family photo from an album or an Instagram reel, we're interested in those fleeting moments that stay with you and refuse to let go.