The German word “doppelgänger” translates to “double goer” and refers to a spirit double, a wraith or apparition identical to the appearance of a human being—what the editors of this magazine might dub a “shadow” even. According to legend, meeting your doppelgänger is meant to symbolize imminent death, as illustrated by horror movies like Jordan Peele’s Us and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Other modern-day applications of dopplegänger lore are more benign. Consider the virality of celebrity look-alike contests, for example, which see would-be Jeremy Allen Whites or Timothée Chalamets jockeying for closest likeness.

Forthcoming art exhibition Uncanny at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC explores similar questions implied by these cultural works: How does it feel to be seen by others? How does it feel to see yourself? Through a combination of sculpture, video, and photography, the museum has collated a number of femme artists, urging viewers to consider how borrowed or re-imagined bodies affect our conceptualization of what it means to be human, and more specifically, what it means to be a woman. Similar to the more contemporary adoption of doppelgänger folklore, art works in Uncanny range from more temperate to shiveringly eerie.

As we navigate the intricate landscape of modern identity, Uncanny reminds us that our sense of self is a fluid, ever-shifting terrain. Between the gentle silhouettes and uncanny metamorphoses, between the playful and the profound, we discover a fundamental truth: we are not fixed, but perpetually becoming. Our bodies are canvases of possibility. In this exploration of doubles, mirrors, and reimagined forms, we are invited to glimpse the multiple selves that reside within and around us, waiting to be recognized, understood and embraced.