The Project I

THE PROJECT I

Exploring the Beauty of Identity through the Lens 

Introduction

Anyone cannot live without any relations. As a globalized world the relations over the world have become important. The concept of Identity is emerged in those relations as a significant icon because from inter personal relations to interstate relations, it is necessity to get understand about the persons’ conceptions and expressions of their own and others' individuality or group affiliations for continue the beneficial relations. However, Identity is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as “who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others”. Therefore, Identity is marked by the commonalities as well as discords and it draws the line between ‘I’ and ‘you’ as well as ‘us’ and ‘them’ with some preconditioned symbols like language, gender, race, cast, religion, colour, age, cloths, food patterns, etc.

Identity of a person is affected by the interaction of the community, thus for build up their own identity, people use their society as a mirror. In this context, identities can be recognized as a product of our society. Therefore, social, political, economic, cultural norms and situations have become a basement of identity. The imbalance between the factor or factors and the social construct element can creates conflict within identities as well as between identities. Nonetheless, none of these identities cannot be prioritized or discriminated base on any form of criteria or condition.  It is important to accept and recognized each identity as unique and independent. However, the own identity emerge us as a different person in the society. Beside of that, every country in this globalized world also has its own identity. Therefore, this concept plays a prominent role in current international relations.

There is a significant link between the identity and the diplomacy. Diplomacy is not only building relations between countries but also making interaction between humanity. In this context, the importance of the identity is emerged. Therefore, as a modern globalized world, understanding and recognizing each diverse identity is utilized to develop the concept of mutuality within sharing lives, space and ideas and believes through creative arts as a new way of diplomacy.

In concerned all of above aspects, understanding the “identity” as a unique phenomenon which determines and nourishes diversity has become the key objective of this project. This project aims to find out unique perspectives in a given identity as the main aspect in understanding diversity using photography as a tool to identify and showcase different identities.

Please find the project from below link.

THE PROJECT I

[ This project was presented at the Regional Centre for Stategic Studies on 14th Dec 2015]

THE TEAM

Scripted and Directed By: Pujika Rathnayake 

Photography By: Sakuna M. Gamage
Make up By : Jayani Wasalsenavirathne 
Models : 
Female – Jayani Wasalsenavirathne 
Male – Malindu Dewanaguru

Supported By: 
Amanda de Silva
Suranga Wiccramarachchi
T. Waradas