Lost Identity

Who are you without the familiar roles that once defined you? As an immigrant Anna Hyvärinen has found herself struggling with her identity. She’s trying to balance between her old life and who she was and Denmark, where she has not yet found her place. The pressure to change in order to fit in to a new culture is strong. To be accepted you need to learn the language and social rules. The resistance to change is just as strong because you don’t want to let go of the only familiar thing in your life that brings safety, the old you, who knew her place and status. She examines the slow yet inevitable transformation through series of self-portraits, which are reflecting the feelings of being an outsider, frustration for not being able to express yourself and aggression turned into empowerment. Her surrealistic collages are glued together piece by piece, like her identity, making the process as important as the final image. Technical details: The collages are handmade. The images were first printed on paper from digital shots, then cut&glued to place and finally scanned.