‘And I wonder,
Where you come from?
I know they have no answers,
But their bloodlines’
- Tanita Tikaram (Bloodlines – Lovers in the City)
A year or so ago, someone asked me when would I be heading home. When I replied sometime around 6, he asked me once again, when would I be heading home. It took me a moment to realize what was being implied. To be honest, the questioner was innocent and didn’t really have an agenda. After all, at some level it is fair to assume that all brown skinned people ultimately go back to that one source of… brown skinned people. So I gave him a polite smile whilst silently composing a mini-essay, bordering on a tedious academic monologue. Fortunately, such unnecessary gravitas doesn’t linger long and soon the essay took on a much lighter hue which finally manifested into a little mini photo project. By now I think I have spent all the nervous energy incited by this photo project idea and am posting it here.
Just a brief note on the concept – home, for me, is a place which holds you accountable for your actions, whether it is a country, city, street or four falls. A number of other sentiments emerge from this sense of responsibility – pride, respect and so on. Some are negative and some are positive. The other stuff on the surface, language, accents and so on, are important but in a way incidental. To be put on and taken off as a sort of second skin. So the idea behind the photo project was to define myself through the sentiments/emotions/aspirations incited by different places I call home.
I present some of these images to you here and look forward to your feedback and comments.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under action, commentary.
You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
A question of identities
‘And I wonder,
Where you come from?
I know they have no answers,
But their bloodlines’
- Tanita Tikaram (Bloodlines – Lovers in the City)
A year or so ago, someone asked me when would I be heading home. When I replied sometime around 6, he asked me once again, when would I be heading home. It took me a moment to realize what was being implied. To be honest, the questioner was innocent and didn’t really have an agenda. After all, at some level it is fair to assume that all brown skinned people ultimately go back to that one source of… brown skinned people. So I gave him a polite smile whilst silently composing a mini-essay, bordering on a tedious academic monologue. Fortunately, such unnecessary gravitas doesn’t linger long and soon the essay took on a much lighter hue which finally manifested into a little mini photo project. By now I think I have spent all the nervous energy incited by this photo project idea and am posting it here.
Just a brief note on the concept – home, for me, is a place which holds you accountable for your actions, whether it is a country, city, street or four falls. A number of other sentiments emerge from this sense of responsibility – pride, respect and so on. Some are negative and some are positive. The other stuff on the surface, language, accents and so on, are important but in a way incidental. To be put on and taken off as a sort of second skin. So the idea behind the photo project was to define myself through the sentiments/emotions/aspirations incited by different places I call home.
I present some of these images to you here and look forward to your feedback and comments.
Tags: identity, photo project
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under action, commentary. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.