We Are Not What We Are was inspired by my relationship with my partner, with whom I have been living in displacement abroad. Through this bond, I recognize the shared experiences and emotions between myself, my partner, and many queers navigating life away from their homeland, confronting the social and cultural forces that shape feelings of estrangement and uprootedness.

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In my practice, I often omit facial features—a gesture that here emphasizes my attempt to move beyond the personal and toward a broader portrayal of diasporic queer women’s collective experience.

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In these two pieces, I depict two naked figures curling into each other, stripped of any external markers, their bodies becoming both vulnerable and intimate. For me, the notion of “home” at this moment is no longer defined by material surroundings or geography, and the self is no longer defined by a homeland that marginalizes us. Instead, home emerges in the fragile yet profound connection between two individuals—marked by solitude, pain, and confusion, but also by tenderness, joy, and the quiet wonder of encountering one another in a journey into the unknown.