Passport Image #1, 'At What Cost'. 2022.
“At What Cost” is an ongoing project exploring displacement, diaspora and the ways in which identity can be altered or obscured by social pressures. The work draws inspiration from families who migrated to England during and after the Second World War, navigating prejudice and the difficult choices required to assimilate. These experiences often included changes to names and identities in order to fit into a new society and the complex decisions around this reflect broader questions of belonging, visibility and self-preservation.
The first part of this project was exhibited with The Socially Engaged Art Salon in Worthing as part of the Refugee Festival in 2024, where I delivered an artist talk exploring the themes of identity, heritage and memory in my own family.
Central to the project is a collection of archival photographs, including a passport portrait that served primarily as identification. By juxtaposing these images with their original names, the project interrogates how naming shapes perception and influences our understanding of identity and heritage. How does a name change the way we read a face? How does it influence the narrative of belonging, memory and displacement?
Passport Image #2, 'At What Cost'. 2022
Family archival images are reimagined as small paper sculptures and the works transform photographs into botanical forms, reflecting both the resilience and fragility of memory. By altering the physical form of these images, the sculptures create a dialogue between the historical weight of diaspora and the visual language of growth and transformation.
'The Market', Photographic Sculpture. 2022
