For this intervention, I am mainly researching how to capture myself in the intergenerational trauma. What is my position? Am I the one who is supposed to break the cycle? I am starting off my project by archiving and researching waters across the world that relate to my body and my surroundings and memories. How does water relate and connect to my body? Why is water important for this project I am working on?
I have always been around water. I was born in Egypt next to the nile. I lived in Egypt for 1 year right in front of the Mediterranean Sea. When we moved to The Netherlands, water was everywhere. I remember when I was a kid that I always felt so connected to waters. I was not really sure why that was the case, but it just was. Now that I am much older, this feeling has not disappeared.

In photography term 2.1, I kind of already started to work around the term “intergenerational trauma” I zoomed (quite literally) into my family archive. I decided to implement some of the work into my final project.

My topic is all about cultural displacement. I deal with it every single day of my life. It basically is about how I do not fit in to the Dutch society, but I also do not feel like I belong to the Arab community. When I go back to Egypt, I feel so different and distant from the people there, which makes sense to a certain extend of course. I grew up in The Netherlands my entire life, but every time I go out and talk to strangers I always get the questions;

no, but where do you really come from though?
Wow, your Dutch is actually pretty good! I’m proud of you for speaking Dutch! How long have you lived here for?

I notice that my white friends do not get asked the same questions, which really bothers me. This has personally developed in a bit of a trauma and I find it harder to start conversations with white strangers that are not from my “so-called bubble”.

Growing up in a Middle Eastern household, I find it difficult to express myself into the world. My parents have taught me things that they learnt from their parents. These morals they hold on to are not accepted in The Netherlands. I also pick up things from my Dutch environment. These Dutch/“western” morals are also not accepted by my Middle Eastern family. This leaves me in great confusion and has traumatised me throughout my upbringing.

At home, we never talked about this problem. This creates an effect of keeping things bottled up and keeping things to yourself. Because of this lack of communication, traumas start and pass on to generations. The same thing has happened to my mother and my father and now my they are doing the same thing to me. Since I am not planning into going into motherhood, I will basically break the cycle of traumas by not creating another generation of people.

My archival methods are basically collecting material to put on the canvas and make a collage that has its connection with the topic of my trauma. I am also archiving the waters and the images and I will put them all together in one piece.