Identity

This series is about you and how your idea on identity defines your work but also about the role of art in the social debate about identity and identity politics. Many artists use their work to express, explore, and question ideas about the way we perceive and express ourselves.

Identity can be defined as the way we perceive and express ourselves. But if we ask Who do you think you are?, we actually ask a question that is bound up in another: What do you think you are? and then we are talking about the complex interplay and overlap of axes of identity like gender, religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, ability, culture etc. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions and are cratered with falsehoods, that can easily be misused/abused for political reasons.

Unfortunately, we are not all treated equally and art can make us aware of the identity of ourselves and of the other and of the power differences that result from it.