Aalia Ahmadi

Featured is the introduction and short extract to my final year dissertation; 'Tides of Self: Understanding Methods of Identity Making for Diasporic Communities through Frameworks of Continuity/Difference'. This work combines autotheory and art criticism to unpack themes of identity construction, diasporic longing and migration.

Using frameworks proposed by Stuart Hall, I look to understand and unpack how understandings of self are constructed within diasporic communities. The works of artists Yto Barrada and Zineb Sedira, are used a case studies to analyse Hall concepts of continuity and difference in identity making, shaping the bulk of the work. And interweaved throughout, are explorations into my own identity through recollection and reimagining. To mirror the personal connection between my work and myself, the extracts are overlayed onto my photography-- a medium I use to unpack and explore the very questions I seek to answer within the dissertation, as attempts of reckoning and extending my enquires beyond the page.