Choice
Do you really choose your identity? Listening to the interviews, more and more I ask myself if we really choose. Somehow it seems that it is mentioned often that one wanted to choose for one’s identity in the past but time passing one ends up accepting a lot of the identity that is already somehow set in beforehand because of the chinese heritage. yes it is that kind of silent acknowledgment that somehow is not a choice but just there. I’m curious how this silent acknowledgment can be expressed in form and shape put into space and time.
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3 Responses to “Choice”
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i just talked about that choice, too, in the post about James, because although i’d like to believe that my identity was up to me, you’re right that it’s not only that. Some of these choices, or the labels that we get assigned with, can be talked about in space by way of distance, i think.
here, a quote from raqs media collective:
“Notions of identity can get powerfully linked to the question of provenance when distance is brought into the mix, because things from afar are firstly and most importantly read in terms of the fact that they are from afar. What something is becomes eclipsed by the fact of where it is from.
Everything that comes from a distant geographical-cultural point of origin is then read predominantly against a matrix of things that too are seen as originating from the same space. This leads to the assumption that if enough objects from a given space were to be brought together at a time, then the objects themselves would automatically yield information about what made them look alike to the distant observer. However, their ‘likenesses’ may in fact be nothing other than an averaging out of what made them unlike the observer’s own idea of himself/herself or his/her familiar co-ordinates.”
because at the end of the day, if we really take the time to get to know one another, to lessen the distance that divides us as nations or races or cultures, we would never be reducible to categorisable definitions of identity. it would only be you and me. choice is not just about what you choose for yourself, it’s about how much you choose to see of the other person.
Right. so it is about perception? how much is one open to perceive the variety of identity?