This series visually manifests the imposed shame and societal pressures experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly the persistent internalized guilt present even among openly queer subjects. The process becomes a transformative act, turning feelings of shame, guilt, and marginalization into powerful visual statements of existence and resilience.

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My personal struggles arose quickly after leaving my country of birth, unpacking began from anxiety, feelings of otherness, lack of belonging, and loneliness during the first quarter after moving to Berlin, a city I only knew as a symbol of freedom through movies and online articles. At that time, my compact camera, my only companion became a transformative tool as I began taking nude self portraits, layering images to visualize the turmoil I felt through an illusory voice whispering, “fuck yourself.”

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Then I applied digital manipulation to these images, aiming to keep identity discreet. Years later, I discovered that these manipulations on depicted sexual acts symbolize persistent shame, even retrospectively for an openly outed homosexual man. And it reflects concealment or staying openly in the closet of shame while the desire for self affirmation persisted.

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As a result of the project, my discovery on deeply rooted shame remained despite living unapologetically as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Being aware that no matter how strongly one feels belonging and lives freely, imposed shame endures. This otherness and deeper wounds, caused by patriarchal societal norms, manifest in diverse forms shaped through a lifetime of struggles, however step by step in each occasion that requires to be healed, resilience grows, and we resist to exist.

Publicly presenting this project as a part of my healing process that aims to spread it further to increase resilience in our resistance for existence, with love.