“There are days where I feel I know my identity and I’m really strong in it, and then there are days where I think, who am I in this world?
I think it’s cool to recognise that a lot of people have those experiences - not just in relation to cultural identity, but gender and sexuality and other aspects in life. Being a Third Culture Kid, means recognising there’s a space that exists between the culture we’re from and the culture we’re living in. I at times feel not South Sudanese enough, or not Australian enough.
I have to accept that I’ll never either or both: those ideas are completely fabricated from outside of myself. For a lot of people who realise they exist in that in-between space, it’s upsetting because you’re neither this nor that. But being a third culture kid means we can be whatever we want and when we recognise that, it’s empowering.”
It sounds reductive to say, but the wax print fabrics that I’ve used in the background of the photos have come to be representative of Africa now. These fabrics that are really common in a lot of parts of Africa and are seen as culturally belonging to those countries, but they were introduced by the Dutch after they had gone to countries like Indonesia. The history of colonialism in that is sort of erased. The prints are representative of Dutch colonisation yet it’s so deeply rooted in African identity now.
A lot of white people are seeking to create some kind of identity because their identity is never questioned. The assumption is always whiteness until there’s another identifier put onto it. That’s the way the world operates because of a history of colonialism. When people we -people who are othered- try to grasp our identity and really formulate it, it’s not seen as the act of rebellion or resistance that it is - it’s seen as this sort of personal vanity thing. Cultural appropriation takes away the depth of these kinds of rebellious acts. Cultural identity is a novelty for people who’ve never had their identity questioned, so appropriating it is seen as a simply a way to feel unique and different.
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