The words identity, authenticity and self-expression have always danced around in my head and led me to explore how I might find these qualities in myself and if others around me have struggled to identify with them.

In our fast-paced, digitised lives, we can lose track of our sense of self and our ability to empathise with the people around us. We regress into some terrible tendencies of judgement and self-deprecation. Why? Because talking from personal experience, it is often easier to shroud ourselves in layers of people-pleasing and pretence than being true to ourselves

The photograph shown here is called ‘Stagnant Identity’. I wanted to explore the physical representation of how our self-expression is hindered through the way we, as a society, hold ourselves and one another back with banal perceptions of people and culture. The hands are a metaphor for the force of society pulling us back. The claustrophobic framing and repetition of hands are intended to communicate the idea of encroaching darkness, threatening to pull us into a place where expectations from others forever control us.

The pandemic has unbound the thread that stitches us together, and we are fighting our way to regain a sense of who we are after so much has been taken from us. I have felt that we are collectively facing a state of stagnation in our day-to-day lives and how we treat others and ourselves. My work also allowed me to speak out about how I have always felt stuck in how I can express myself out of the fear that society won’t accept me. Now, more than ever, I feel this tension in society and the voices of those who want to be heard, suppressed.