Tayo Adekunle
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Contemporary Identity focuses on nationality and identity. In this increasingly multicultural world, it is frustrating how there is still a pressure to pick only one country to identify yourself as being from. Being born in England into a Nigerian family, I have experienced the struggle of being pushed to make this choice first hand and have used my work to explore the lives of people with similar experiences. Through a series of interviews, I have learnt about people's stories concerning their nationality, their identity and the struggle that comes with this. The works came through a discovery and documentation of examples and evidence of people’s multicultural backgrounds, which I use to celebrate the diversity and beauty of mixed cultures. I feel there shouldn’t be a pressure to decide which culture you belong to, instead the mix should be embraced and celebrated.
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Ana
Indicated by her tattoo, Ana’s home is in a country to which it is difficult to return. Having being born in Columbia to her parents who are originally from Durham and then living in Saudi Arabia for 16 years, Ana struggles to pinpoint where her identity lies.
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Camilla
Part of Camilla’s struggle lies in the fact that the culture she is immersed in at her house in a London, comes from a country that no longer exists; Soviet Union Uzbekistan. This means that Camilla does not identify with a lot of the culture from today’s Uzbekistan. During her interview, she mentioned a traditional tea cup, a part most Uzbek households have which is used for a tea pouring ceremony. After explaining the careful process of how to hold and pour from it, Camilla described how she uses the cup for everything apart from its actual purpose; from holding paper clips to mixing paint.
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Camilla
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Eugenia
Eugenia was born in England into a Russian family where her mother felt it was important for the children to maintain their Russian culture whilst in England. She made sure Eugenia and her siblings were fluent in Russian and one of the ways she did this was through giving her children Russian translations of popular novels.
