Facticity(18+)

“In the works of Sartre, facticity signifies all of the concrete details against the background of which human freedom exists and is limited. For example, these may include the time and place of birth, a language, an environment, an individual’s previous choices, as well as the inevitable prospect of their death. ”(1)

I am born and raised under various dictatorships across the past four decades of my life in the middle east. One of the most bothersome of my experiences was being very religious at an early age. I was unable to think critically and to enjoy life in a healthy way. Anything and everything was encrusted in religion. In retrospect I am still struggling to think for myself and to accept responsibility for my life. The current series looks at the beauty and strength of rebellion against a life that does not allow free thought. The symbols emphasized can be substituted and extended to cover almost all that can keep us from free thought. The series bifurcated as one with a constricting border symbolizing the limits on our freedom and one without border symbolizing that we can make our own destiny. The final images are a reminder that death is inevitable not as a limiting and crippling prospect but as a liberating and empowering event. After all everybody we know probably is not alive in a hundred years.

(1) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facticity