Optimal Distance is a body of series of photographic self-portraits through which I explore the emotional experience of displacement and the psycho-social importance of home. The work is concerned with how identity is shaped by a sense of belonging and the role that cultural perception plays in this process. 

 

Inspired by my own experience of moving abroad, I initiated this project after living almost ten years in Ireland to confront my longing for feeling at home in one place that would free my mind from concerns. On a journey of personal discovery, purely motivated by a desire for a life change, I left what was then my home for somewhere new. This transition has proved challenging to my sense of self, evoking a sense of loss, which has left me with a grief-like emotion. 

 

The key attitude to my confrontation is to gain an access to different households where I perform to the lens while letting myself be inspired by the specifics of the domestic space to claim each place as my own home. This facilitates an illusion that comforts my grieving mind. The excessive inhabitation of various physical spaces connotes the process of seeking a resolution to loss. My body is where the conflicted experience is homed and where the shift in how such experience is perceived is manifested. Both territories represent the place where the emotional connection and social acceptance takes place as the unfamiliar or foreign becomes recognised as domestic and known.