Optimal Distance is a body of series of photographic self-portraits. Through this work I explore a sense of belonging and also look at themes of identity transformation and culture perception.

I initiated this project after living almost ten years in Ireland to confront my longing for feeling at home in one place that maintains my mind free of concern. On a journey of personal discovery, purely motivated by a desire for a life change, I left my home for new. But the shifts experienced in psychological sets challenge my sense of unity and kind of breed a sense of displacement. This leaves me with a grief-like emotion.

The key attitude to my confrontation is to gain an access to inhabited places where I perform to the lens while letting myself be inspired by as well as using their original interior and exterior designs to claim each place to be my home. This facilitates an illusion that comforts my grieving mind. The physical spaces I occupy connote the process of seeking a resolution to the sense of loss. My body is where the conflicted experience is homed and where the shift in perception is manifested. Both territories represent the place where the emotional and social transition takes place as foreign is accepted for domestic.