AP PORTFOLIO: “Where are you from?” (15 )

Answering that question – “Where are you from?”– would be a long and winding list of all the places I have lived and felt associated with but I cannot truthfully say that that is where I am from. Growing up as an Indian-American who has lived in a range of cities from Shanghai to Pittsburgh to Arizona, and now Saratoga has given me a conflicting understanding of where I am from and how I should shape my cultural perspective.

This series of self-portraits aims to depict my emotional relationship to my Indian heritage as I try to understand where I belong within two worlds. Whether it’s confusion, guilt, or anxiety, my Indian heritage has always elicited a feeling of anticipation as if one day someone will come and tell me how I should connect to my culture and that one day I will understand where I come from.

Within my process, I opted to take digital photographs that I printed out as large as possible to showcase the motion blur I employed while taking the photos to show my confusion and my conflicted notion of identity. In Indian culture, outfits are often brightly coloured and I wanted to highlight that by enhancing the colors. I also used exposure to show how the piece makes me feel exposed or suppressed.

I opted to be the subject of these pieces since I aimed to depict an honest retelling of my association with my Indian heritage. If I had chosen a subject other than myself, the works would have elicited a less specific connection to my personal values, beliefs, and confusion. Instead of creating a broad message that everyone can relate to, I opted to tell a singular story which creates empathy from a viewer rather than a direct connection to my pieces. In doing this, I want them to understand my story through self-portraits rather than any other model.