Expressions of Emotion and Identity
A room made of inner worlds
Layered Shadows is my inner world, transformed into a walkable space.
These self-portraits began as a form of survival — a way to hold myself, to process fracture, and to search for belonging in the in-between. Between cultures, between countries, between states of being.
They were made while I was living between Germany and Lebanon, holding two very different realities at once: safety and softness here, while chaos and war unfolded back home. That tension — of being here and there at once — shaped every image.
To walk through them is to walk through my path: from blur and rupture toward moments of clarity and grounding — unfinished, open, and still shifting.
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Layered Shadows was created during a period of living between Germany and Lebanon, while navigating two parallel realities: daily life continuing in Europe as war and instability unfolded in my country of origin. In this tension of being here and there at once, the body became a place where fear, distance, responsibility, and resilience accumulated quietly, often without language.
Through self-portraiture, I turn the camera toward myself as a way of staying present — of holding the self together while allowing fragmentation to remain visible. Faces blur, overlap, or dissolve; bodies appear suspended between stillness and strain. Rather than presenting a fixed identity, the images reflect a shifting state of being shaped by migration, emotional survival, and the negotiation of visibility and invisibility.
The work does not seek resolution. Instead, it offers a visual language for the in-between: moments of softness alongside rupture, clarity emerging briefly from uncertainty.
The project is conceived as a spatial installation. The photographs are suspended from the ceiling, allowing viewers to walk between them rather than observe them from a fixed position. Printed on semi-translucent Awagami paper, the images remain partially visible from both sides, creating layers of light and shadow and reinforcing the experience of standing between emotional states.
On the opening night, the exhibition moved beyond the still images. Together with three dancers from the Volkstheater Rostock: Ron Estrea Kaslasy, Corinne Källin and Flurin Stocker, the works were brought into a physical, moving dialogue.
Photography met movement and Bodies reacted to the images, to the space, and to each other. Touch, distance, and presence became part of the room.
The performance was not all choreographed. It developed in the moment, just like the self-portraits themselves: from emotion, from tension, from the search for clarity and softness.
For a short time, the exhibition turned into a living, breathing version of itself.
