About

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character. Therefore, it behoves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

THE IDEA

Forsaken Identity is a creative project by art photographer Alex Wolkowicz and writer Susie Stubbs that takes as its starting point a quote from the American philosopher Emerson. It looks at the idea that throughout their lives people create multiple ‘versions’ of themselves; that emotional honesty is flexible; that the stories people weave and wind around their lives aren’t necessarily true.

We all have stories to tell. We tell different versions of those stories to please or to fool; to get us closer to the person we want to be, or to pretend to be someone we are not.

Using the testimony of volunteers in several different cities, Forsaken Identity attempts to illustrate the different personalities ordinary people inhabit. It does this by asking volunteers to tell two stories about themselves, one real and one not. From these stories, and the accompanying portrait photographs of participants, Forsaken Identity creates its own series of stories, entirely fictional ones, that are as complex and contradictory as the lives of the people who take part in the project.

So – this is an exercise in fictional reality. It’s a project that deliberately blurs the line between real life and make-believe.

THE ARTISTS

Alexandra Wolkowicz is a Polish/German photographer and artist currently resident in Liverpool, UK. Her work explores themes about our relationship with the world and how we share it with each other and other living things. Essentially tactile and documentary, her work springs from her experience with photography, performance, theatre and the creation of unique representations of places, things and histories which move her. She works with still and moving imagery often with the addition of sound. Her intervention with things and situations found is to alter, adjust and reconstruct the familiar in order to create moving, thought-provoking and poetic representations. Her working practice is often collaborative and multidisciplinary, choosing to select media appropriate to the aesthetics and content of a particular piece. She has travelled widely and has worked with artists and in residencies in Europe, North America and Asia.

Susie Stubbs is a writer and journalist based in Manchester, UK. She conceived and edited Creative Tourist, an award-winning online arts magazine. She has written for The Guardian, The Independent, Time Out and Corridor8, has published The Twentieth Century: How It Looked & How It Felt (Tate Publishing) and Black Panther: Emory Douglas and the Art of Revolution (Urbis), and writes an award-winning blog. She is editing her first novel, a book set in Laos; the novel recently won a development award at Manchester Literature Festival, courtesy of Crocus Books. Her creative practice focuses on belonging and identity, on the psychology of familial relationships, and in illustrating moments of unexpected beauty within everyday environments.

OUR THANKS TO…

All our participants; Cornerhouse, Modern Designers.