Скачать или смотреть The Identity Puzzle

Identity. My multiplicity. You’d think identity is easy to explore and understand. It is not. Our whole DNA, visible and invisible is made up of so many nuances. Making us each a unique individual in this vast universe we call home.

I have been reading ‘How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division’ by Elif Shafak, and it is there I first discovered and connected with the term ‘multiplicity’. Throughout my childhood, adolescence and adulthood, I’ve always felt like I was trying to ‘fit in’ into society. My Turkish and Britishness always made me feel like I was not quite one or the other, akin to a jigsaw puzzle piece not quite fitting in, despite you willing it to do so. I never realised that there was such a thing of choosing to be beyond the classifications given to us by society. That I could choose multiplicity.

Then there’s another aspect of hidden identity. Passing. It is only recently that I understood the notion of ‘Passing’, a story written by Nella Larsen; growing up I adopted ways to pass off as being ‘white’ – a label to this day still bemuses me. Why is it necessary to be categorised into a box? Why that box? My uniqueness rebels at the thought of being boxed-in, particularly for a tick-box exercise. Yet, growing up in a county I was made to feel alien to, I found ways of passing. I suppose that’s Cultural Assimilation in a way. Nevertheless, that act of ‘passing’ always brought the realisation that I am still an outsider.

In this animation, my three paintings based on identity become a puzzle. Showing we are all fragmented, and these fragments are made up by many things, including culture, ethnicity, heritage as well as how society defines us. By piecing the pieces of the puzzle together we become whole. To become whole, we need to understand who we are by recognising and fragments and what they stand for.

This artwork has been created as part of Chapter Two of the Goldenthread Sketchbook Project. Check out all the other artworks and artists from this project at: https://www.goldenthreadsketchbook.wo...

To find out more about me and what I do, please visit my website www.yikici.co.uk

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