Installation / Research / Identity

story of the self

MIGRATION LAYER 01
HOME / BELONGING LAYER 02
ASSIMILATION LAYER 03
HYBRID IDENTITY LAYER 04
Visualisation of identity morphing
Fine Art / Installation / Research

Identity

An installation exploring migration, displacement and the transformation of identity through experiences of home, belonging, assimilation and cultural adaptation.

Foundation in Art & Design University of Westminster Distinction 2020 Installation
00 / THESIS

Identity is not static.

Research → Making → Installation

Identity changes through movement, encounter, dislocation and the experience of entering another culture.

Identity explores migration as more than geographical movement. The project considers how leaving one place and entering another can reshape a person's relationship with home, culture, belonging and the self.

The installation investigates the tension between maintaining an inherited identity and adapting to a new social and cultural environment. Rather than presenting identity as fixed, the work visualises it as layered, unstable and continuously reconstructed.

Physical transparency became a central material metaphor. Separate visual layers combine when viewed or projected together, mirroring the way individual experiences accumulate into a hybrid identity.

01 / RESEARCH TERRITORY

Between places.

01 Migration Leaving / Entering
02 Home Place / Memory
03 Belonging Inclusion / Distance
04 Assimilation Adaptation / Pressure
05 Hybridity Between identities
02 / IDENTITY MORPHING

From one symbol into another.

Sequence visualising identity morphing
Migration is represented through a visual transformation between cultural symbols. The changing figures become a metaphor for adaptation and the movement between inherited and newly encountered identities.
The hybrid stage becomes particularly important: it is neither the original state nor the destination, but something created through the experience of existing between the two.
03 / RESEARCH

Mapping identity.

Home / Migration / Dislocation
Identity research and migration diagram

The research considered identity in relation to place: the place we leave, the place we enter and the psychological position that develops between them.

Home functions here not simply as an address, but as a combination of language, memory, familiarity, culture and belonging.

Migration introduces another layer: negotiation. The individual must continually decide which elements are retained, which are adapted and which are transformed.

04 / MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

Building the layers.

Image / Material / Light
Material experiments and root layer development
Background / Root Layer
DNA layer material experimentation
DNA Layer / Material Experiments
DNA layer material experimentation
DNA Layer / Material Experiments
DNA layer material experimentation
DNA Layer / Material Experiments
05 / INSTALLATION SYSTEM

Identity as depth.

The final installation transforms the research into spatial depth.

Multiple semi-transparent surfaces hang one behind another. Each acts as a component of identity, while projection causes the image to pass through and accumulate across the layers.

The further the image travels through the installation, the larger and less singular it becomes.

01 PROJECTED IMAGE
02 TRANSPARENT LAYER
03 CULTURAL MEMORY
04 EXPERIENCE
05 ADAPTATION
06 HYBRID IDENTITY
Diagram of the layered identity installation
Final Identity installation
06 / FINAL INSTALLATION

Story of the self.

The final installation brings physical material, projected light and layered imagery together to visualise identity as something accumulated rather than singular.

Closing Statement

We do not simply leave one identity and enter another. We accumulate layers.