IDENTITY - WHO ARE YOU? HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF, NOT HOW OTHERS SEE YOU...
TYCA - TURKISH YOUTH & COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
This project focuses on portrait photography as a way of documenting and investigating identity, inspired by the impulsive work of Gillian Wearing’s ‘Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say And Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants you To Say’(1992-93). Wearings collection of photographic images are of random people she photographed in a ‘snapshot' style, holding hand written statements about how they were feeling or what they were thinking at that very moment.
The idea of this project is that we have labels in some shape or form, that we carry a ‘label’ invisible or visible to others. As women, we have different 'labels' that are put upon us, or we have common identities, which relate to stereotypes of women. With this study of identity, the aim is to show how a community of Turkish women relate to aspects of their identity. When questioned ‘how do you see your self?’ or ‘who are you?’ How does that individual relate to them selves? Is it through nationality, gender, occupation or something else?
The images show how the individual see themselves and not how others see them, by allowing them to write down ‘who they are’ they have created there own ‘label’.
- ozlem.
© ÖZLEM MEHMET PHOTOGRAPHY