The Art of being Lost
This self-portrait series represents a journey from feeling lost to discovering a profound truth: home is not just a place, but a sense of belonging within one self and the Earth. Wandering from the majestic cliffs of Cape Point to the expansive grasslands of the Kalahari, I mourned my old self and embarked on a pilgrimage of self -discovery.
This series explores the amalgamation of who I am now. To mourn the death of my identity and the labyrinth of introspection. I aimed to create an experience that would help others and myself to heal. To embrace the liminality of being lost to mold into the acceptance of just being. To give unrestricted access to my broken pieces and my healing process To shed light on the psychological growing pains of life and the daunting search for identity.
The Art of being Lost is a photographic, self-portrait series that began in the late summer of 2022. I solo travelled from Johannesburg to Cape Town early 2023 with a hidden agenda to never return. It was strange. When I thought about my trip, I couldn't visualise coming back home. It never crossed my mind. I just wanted to escape. I was in the preverbal self-dug hole and engineered my salvation to be non-existent.
Skin
Skin is the first chapter of this series. Its purpose was to explore the surface of what it means to be human. The skin mimics the landscapes of the world I've seen. The aim was to capture the small intricates of form to find the relation to nature. To find acceptance.
Water
Water is the second chapter of this series. Its purpose is to visualize drowning in the sea of self-discovery. The struggle to find oneself. The sink or swim mentality of finding who we are and who we want to be.
Earth
Earth is the third chapter of this series. Its purpose was to hide my body in the landscape. To show the ways we adjust to our environments. How we mold and shape ourselves to be more acceptable for others.
The Artist book
The Art of being Lost began as visual medium for an artist book project. The book become the holder of this journey and I wanted the its construction to reveal the layers of myself. When fully opened the book is just short of a meter wide, half a meter long and weighs around 4kgs. This self-portrait book is the visualisation of my self-discovery. It's the personification of my darkest times and the metamorphosis of my becoming.
As I look back, I realise that I didn't want to die but a part of me needed to. The sadness was me mourning the death of my old self. I needed to stay still for a while for the metamorphosis to take place. This Artist’s book isn't just pages filled with photos and things, it’s a memoir. I figured the least I could do was celebrate the death I had been too afraid to speak about. Myself.