Torn Curtain Hotel Room 26

This photo is part of the series of self-portraits in hotels called ATOPOS. Revealingly enough, instead of taking the camera out to the street during my travels, I felt the urge to pause and place myself in the centre of these unknown yet intimate, temporary spaces. Being an immigrant for over 20 years, I continue to question the meaning of the words place and identity, given that my own identity has been shaped by the different cultures and countries I have lived in. Therefore, I see identity rather as a continuous flow, a journey, and an escape from any definition, and not as something assigned to me by birth.
By fixing a moment in a hotel room, where mobility and stillness coincide, I attempt to deconstruct and explore the different meanings of the terms non-place and identity in relation to contemporary mobility, I observe the feelings of alienation, disorientation, anticipation, and loneliness that accompany the act of uprooting due to leaving one’s home, as well as the sense of freedom that a newly gained nomadic identity can provide.