February 2003
Artist - Hetain Patel | |
|  | | Hetian Patel - Artist |
| | Hetain Patel is a student at Nottingham Trent University. His work centres around the struggle to place my identity between two very different cultures. |
| | | Artist profile
My work centres around the struggle to place my identity between two very different cultures.
I try to address what it means to have a social and cultural responsibility, and where one lies in relation to this. I approach this issue from my point of view as a second generation British Asian.
Trying to get to grips with this hybrid area between two cultures brought about my interest in language. In particular, semiotic pioneer Ferdinand Sausseur who highlights the notion of not being able to think outside of language, that we do not speak language but rather it speaks us.
However, if this suggests that different languages in any way dictate differing thought, then how is someone living between languages supposed to think?
I interpret this inbetween area through photography, in which I frame myself in, what seems to me, to be a very western styled glossy image. I write all the text on my face and body myself.
This is an important aspect of the work as I am beginning to realise that ultimately the discovery or construction of my identity is largely in my own hands.
Whether it is the traditional culture from my home life, the British culture of the host nation, or any third place in between, to a large extent I impose it on myself.
Artist's Gallery
Take a look at a sample of Hetain Patel's work. Click on the images to see a much larger version...
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