Photography with cut out photograph, 11 inch x 17 inch

In this project I am exploring the idea of belonging to dual time, place and memories, using the everyday as a subject.

The everyday interest me with its illusory nature to appear so ordinary, invisible in its environment. It seems to mask its full tendency to become mystified once it is dislocated from its origin.

In this piece I first photographed the enviroment from my current daily routines and printed them. I then cut them out inshapes of common scenes of figures, objects and written language from my past, Ethiopia. I mounted the photo cutouts on paperclips and returned to the locations of the original photographs.

The final pieces were shot while holding the photo cutouts in-front of my camera, attempting to align them with their original locations. Though the cut out elements covers some aspects of the present moment I attempt to a make a relationship with and to blend in with my current environment. For one who moved between geographies, can never be fully part of the present or the past but supended between here and there and multiple realities. I insert my body as a witness to confirm the here and now. Prints of the final pieces are scaled so that my hand appears at actual size, placing the viewer in the same position.

Exhibitions