“Inner Alchemy” featured in VOLTA Magazine (p. 58 to 69)
During my year at the fashion & lifestyle society, I took on the role of creative advisor. I was tasked with creating and executing a photoshoot for a section of our magazine. Using multimedia methods I told a story about this year’s theme, IDENTITY. I decided to highlight the differences in socialization between marginalized and privileged individuals. As a women of colour, my experience growing up in North America was one filled with joy and love, but has a backdrop of racism and ostracism. I took the concept of identity literally, deciding to dedicate my section of this magazine to describing and visualizing my journey, and the journey of my others, from self-rejection through perpetuating whiteness, to embracing the unchanging. Culture is essential. It is diverse. Nurturing my North African heritage is the core of my piece. It is a message that is essential to teach young women of colour who are convinced they are lesser than.
Summary
Identity building is absurdly multifarious. We battle ourselves, struggling to find who we are in the formative years of our lives … and we battle exterior influence telling us our skin is too dark, our hair is too unruly, our culture is barbaric, and our language is primitive. The struggle exists between who we want to be and who we are. This work is dedicated to all of the young women in their respective diaspora’s who grew up in the West. Who watched their countries in the Global South face death and destruction at its hands (furthering the chasm within our identity). The efforts for autonomy over oneself, over ones country — the right to decided your own future — are intrinsically connected.
“As a first generation American born to Muslim parents in Pennsylvania in 2002, I’m no stranger to the personal impact work and have on people. The War on Terror. The Patriot Act. The propaganda used to slaughter millions of people.
War is mediated through a prideful lines. We are born and bred to be proud of our troops. To hear their stories. To honour the fallen. It took me years to realize how blinded I was to the suffering of my people.”
Read the full magazine below.
Hannah Elatty 