We are all plagued with this question. Some embrace who they are and fit well into their identity others of us wish for another, some chose to remove the thought entirely or some, like me, feel a duality. There are many ways to approach this internal gnaw, each to their own for each is their own.
Sometimes I fit, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I see the beauty and wonder, sometimes I see only mundane and irrational negativities.
After writing a series of blogs and realising that it is easy to select a number of images that speak to me and share these on a daily basis I find that perhaps this is not me.
So then: Who am I? I found myself asking this question and realising that who you are, when there are so many external influences is a difficult question to answer.
Is, who I am, where I was born? ... well then I am a South African.
Is this where I choose to live? ... then I am a small towner in a sleepy village in England.
Where I work?...Then I am an insurance IT support person.
What I have done? ... Then I am a teacher, a carer, a tutor, a teller, a waitress.
What I choose to read about? ... Then I am a Scientist, Artist, Philosopher, Astronomer.
What I have studied? ... Then I am a Biochemist.
What I no loger do, but enjoy none-the-less? ... a diver, a golfer, an actress this list is almost endless.
What I choose to spend my time on? ... Then I am a runner, a photographer, a writer.
What I choose for me? ... then I am a creator, a fabricator for the witnesses of life.
My inspiration for this week then is a part of who I am: a South Afican.
Pieter Hugo's work, although I find it intriguing and thought provoking. In his work he uses his photography as a strory telling tool, he is a writer of image and for me he is also a creator and a fabricator provoking you to bear witness to a surrealism within a world that exists in our reality. But, if this world is unlike your existent world then at this point surrealism takes hold.
I come from a place and time where I have seen and experienced similarities in life and real world situations, which lean towards the surrealism within his work. However, his work reveals to me a part of me, gained from my life experience, that I wish to hide from and cover up and perhaps don't want to be a part of me. I no longer experience life's similarities to his images because I live elsewhere, in a different culture and a different society with different ways. But, it is still me and will always reside within me.
So who I am must start from where I come from, the surrealism lies in who I am not and that which I don't understand.
