identity & prejudice beyond sight
Individual vs Collective
...I feel very uncomfortable with my identity…there is always a longing for a “better me”. I feel angry/helpless/overwhelmed when I look at myself in the mirror for a long time. I have been consciously unlearning all the toxic conditioning of constant negative talk but there is a long way to go. Lot of times I feel that the things I hold on to as my identity doesn’t matter at all. I find it obscure.
- Morty Smith, Week 09
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Click on 'Read' on any of the thumbnails to go to the page with ALL the artworks under this theme and read reflections and more
NAVIGATION
DESCRIPTION: This is a collage of thumbnails of the artistic responses that are part of this theme. Each thumbnail of the image has a background that corresponds to the week in which it was submitted. There are 12 artworks under this theme. This is the colour scheme and the total number of images for each week: Week 1,peach: 1,Week 3,red: 1,Week 5,light blue: 2, Week 7,light yellow:2, Week 8, sea green:2, Week 9,mustard:3. Week 10, dark purple:1’.
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As much as individualism remains a cherished aspiration, connectedness is inherent to human existence. The identities that we claim for ourselves and those which are conferred upon us by others are the products of history and collective values, beliefs and anxieties over the years. This does not mean that we have no agency to prioritize our identities and to influence our prejudices, but that our agency is not free and is influenced by the social forces around us. Nevertheless, our desperate search for individuality invariably poses tensions and negotiations with the collectivist ethos in which we exist, and we seldom accept our forceful assignment to various subject positions by social structures.