CONTEMPORARY ART AWARDS 

When thinking about texts and words, one cannot escape the philosophy of identity; how language constructs culture and the history of a human being. A person’s language creates a mystery in the concept of someone’s identity by triggering differences in how a person perceives others and how others perceive us. I am astonished by the way a person can be multiple persons when they speak other languages. The perception towards their surroundings is shaped by the culture of which language they are speaking. I am interested in the mystery behind the culture formed by language; does culture shape language or does language shape culture? And that would relate further to this question: does culture shape identity or does identity shape culture? If we cannot 100% understand ourselves, would that mean one’s perception of us could be the rest of the percentage of ourselves that we did not understand? Would that make their perception as a part of our identity?

By language, one can be seen in thousands of different ways by others. Quoting French rappers, Big Flo & Oli, “Jesuis un peu de moi et beaucoup des autres comme j’y pense.” (meaning: I am a bit of myself and a lot of the others when I think about it).

This philosophy escorted me to the idea of creating a set of alphabets. Foreign, unfamiliar, and questionable. The idea of pouring daily thoughts in poetry and random writings in these alphabets is meant to raise questions from the audiences—whether or not they perceive the author differently; or to ask myself the same question—whether or not I perceive surroundings differently.