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Identity
When I felt fear I aimed
my camera to the darkness and shadows. When I felt tired and unsure
I aimed my camera to the earth and looked for a dialogue, a
conversation between foreground and background. When I felt weak and
defeated I only saw empty spaces. When I felt lost I turned to the
sky, to open spaces, calming colors, and escape. My work is a
celebration of solitude.
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My
struggle is between facts and emotions. I am no longer sure that
nationality, religion, race, politics and beliefs define a person’s
identity. Growing up in Jerusalem I was always put into categories:
I was a Christian in a Moslem neighborhood. At school I was an
outsider. At photography school I was the only Arab amongst
Israelis. At home, I was different; none of these labels described
who I really was. I rejected such classifications and in doing so,
I lost my sense of belonging. Instead, words such as
Freedom, Individuality, Originality, and Serenity became an
inseparable part of my being and everyday thoughts.
I
see my work in three stages. My first images were a return to my
childhood, my origin, and my past. These are dark memories, of loss,
deprivation, and above all, solitude. Looking at these images is for
me like waking up from a nightmare; I feel safe just by looking at
the known surroundings, and feeling the ground I stand on.
In the second stage the images speak
of my search for my self and my development as a human being. I
turned to the emptiness and the beauty of nature. This emptiness was
soothing but yet, it concealed a hidden menace and challenge. In
this tension I found echoes of my sense of displacement, desolation,
loss, decay, and even violence. Sometimes I felt trapped by this
dilemma; there was only separation, no escape. I saw elements that
could be mistaken for being part of nature. Left behind, after time
one takes it for granted that they belong. But they do not belong;
they are simply not made of the same structure.
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Sometimes I felt that there was no
exit, but in my photographs I left signs of hope. One may feel that
he is standing in my images without an indication of where to go.
But there is still a way – my way of dealing with this long life
struggle, a way that leads to the world I built for myself – my
world.
It is this
world that keeps me going forward. In it I felt the freedom that I
have been denied, the sense of space that I needed to function. This
is a place beyond categories. These images are a transformation of
my past experiences; they are images with no sense of time, making
them my sanctuaries. This is my spiritual way out of the struggle, a
transcendence of the unfinished account of my childhood, my history
and my identity.
Steve Sabella |
