Negar Sahebalzamani

The Double Consciousness series is a continuous exploration of the dissonant nature of identity within the diaspora. It reflects the tension of attempting to live normally while the hum of news from home lingers in the background. 

Double Consciousness II is inspired by moments of comfort shared between the artist and her mother while watching films; capturing the coexisting intimacy and quiet avoidance that such rituals can hold. 

In Double Consciousness I, although separated by the mirror, the two women are connected in action and held in equal importance, showing connection and solidarity. As the connection to a diasporic home is often rooted in memory and the imaginary, the superimposed realms evoke a dreamlike state.

The use of the explosion creates a contradiction by being physically removed but psychically tethered to a place under threat. The diasporic subject sees, remembers, feels, yet cannot intervene. The women pictured are calm, yet their stillness is heavy, a silent reckoning with fractured belonging and unspoken grief. The superimposition of places recalls the fragmented realities of the diasporic subject where danger is normalized and goes unspoken. The estrangement between the bodies and the bomb resists a neat narrative of war, refusing the expectation of spectacle and the flattening of Middle Eastern lives into victimhood. These pieces become a quiet act of mourning, reckoning, and resistance, reclaiming agency amidst attempts of erasure.