Identity Project Booklet

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This booklet is my main body of work for this project. In it I have written about my own personal experiences with some of the hardest experiences I have had to deal with in my life - as in my opinion this is what shapes your identity - as well as looking at the experiences of others. The cover (as shown on the left) is a drawing I made as I also feel that drawing, art and illustration has been a huge part of my life, and always will be. I got the idea from looking at some inspiration online for artwork with the theme of identity. It is of a mask of myself with a section cut away so that you can see beneath the surface, which is essentially what I aim to do with this booklet. The mask represents a lot of things in my opinion, because if you think about it, when we interact with others, they don't really know who we are. Even if you've known that person for years and years, you still do not know who that person really is and what it is like to be that person. This is why, for each portrait I thought that it was crucial for each person to write something about themselves, as this is the best representation of that person. Even then, people cannot express themselves fully through writing, as you are converting specific thoughts and feelings into words, but it is the best representation of a person.

On the left is the divider for 'My Story' which is where I give a brief (it doesn't necessarily look brief but it is in terms of how I explained it) overview of the most significant events in my life - the most toxic relationships in my life so far and the aftermath of my accident and my experiences during these times. I decided to use fake names instead of the real names. On the cover is a portrait by one of my closest friends, who was always there for me during some of the toughest times in my life. I will always be grateful to her for that. I wrote quite about 6 sides of A3 detailing my experiences and how they affected me and who I am today.

In the background I included drawings from around the same time that all of this happened to me. I also decided to keep the binding of my sketchbooks to give it a more authentic feel that is true to myself, almost as if you are looking at the sketchbook as it tells a story of its own. These drawings captured the way I felt during these times in my life. They depict scenes of pain and suffering especially. Each drawing has its own story.

On the first page there is a drawing of a burning figure, chained at each limb, stuck between five different girls, but the one above is the one between the chains. In this drawing I was trying to communicate the feeling of being torn between different girls even though I was very attached to one girl - the one between the chains. I wanted to break free of my attachment to her but it was so so difficult, as if I was chained up and locked away - when all these other people were watching me.

On the drawing of on the second page, I captured a scene inspired by real life - when I saw that girl sitting on a barrier after school, and I kept looking in her direction. I remember how she was sitting there over the flowers, but the background I drew a city skyline type of thing with all the lights on, as if the world was watching her too, and it wasn't just me. I was often worried that everyone saw her the way I saw her, however that wasn't the case.

The third page has a drawing of an imagined scene between the years 2017-2018 when so much of the stuff between me and 'Ellie' happened as well as the aftermath of my brain injury. Things were very hard during this time, but as the year was coming to an end, I felt a new sense of optimism and hope in the air for me as things could only get better from here. Things were hard but it wouldn't stay that way forever. I wasn't gonna let this hold me back. I will still get to where I want to be in my life and I will keep fighting.

On the fourth page the drawing was of 'Ellie' who I was in a very toxic relationship with. I was told by my counsellor that she was broken by her family life at home, with parents that would buy whatever she wanted but would push her away and not give her any sort of attention or real love. What people don't get from their parents, they seek for in relationships. This lead to her doing this thing in relationships with boys where she would pull and push her 'boyfriend' away so that she felt that she had power. Taking revealing pictures of herself is of course, one of the ways she would 'pull me in' and then push me away by being blunt or ignoring my messages etc etc.

The fifth drawing wasn't so much of an artwork itself, it was sort of a mix of many different things, doodles, sketches and random objects that I drew. The image in the middle resembles the image on the second page, because it was a failed attempt of that drawing, that I cut and stick onto a different page.

The sixth and final drawing I did was meant to be a vivid depiction of a human heart being shot by Cupid's bow and arrow - which is pretty obvious what it represents - my attachment to her being so strong that it was painful. Much like an arrow to the chest.

For the next section of my Identity Booklet, I included a section called 'Our Stories'. The purpose of this section was to look at life from other people's eyes, and to look at the experiences of others. I asked each person for a portrait of themselves and for them to write a monologue themselves. I strictly wanted them to write it and also did not include real names so that their story could be heard and not the actual person to be known if that makes sense. Not everyone was willing to necessarily open up about things like that which was totally understandable, so I didn't force it. However some people felt naturally able to write about their own experiences and captured it through words. I was very grateful to those people, because it took a lot of courage to open up about the hardest experiences of their lives. I guess arguably, the people who wouldn't open up as much and just talked about themselves as a person, could either be more traumatized, or just didn't have the capacity to look at themselves that deeply. Had I had more time I would have potentially collected more stories and portraits from people who were willing to participate in the project, and chosen the stories with the most poignant and moving stories, but I was grateful to everyone who spent the time writing something anyways. (p.s. Jane got her name as this was the name my therapist and psychologist gave her when I was talking about her but without revealing her name).

The final page of the booklet is rather more reflective of myself, although it links very much into the lives of my friends and their experiences that they may not have shared in their monologue but told me about in person. The quote 'the love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned'. The drawing is of a woman called 'Anna', someone who I believe was important to me for many reasons. She talked to me about my brain injury, my toxic relationship with 'Ellie' and she knew bits about where things were going with 'Jane' before I left school. I became attracted to her but she had her own life, career, family and everything that I didn't, as she was at least ten years older than me. I don't know if she felt the same, but I caught her looking at me, and I couldn't stop looking at her. She was genuinely beautiful. The way enthusiasm and interest glowed in her eyes every time I talked to her is something I can't really forget.

And of course it can't be returned for many, many reasons.