When I began this year, I realised that I wanted to use it as a sort of Phototherapy year to help express myself through photography, and so I started to analyse myself and figure out what I could turn into a photographic project and something that is not too intense to ease myself back into university after Lockdown. After talking to my sisters, I realised that one thing we all have is severe paranoia, that feeling that we are being watched constantly. Whenever I do something embarrassing, silly, funny or private, there is always a little voice in our heads saying that someone saw us doing these things. After our first crit, I was told that it would be a good idea to figure out why I feel this way, and it made me realise that once again, it was due to my stepfather who has made all of our lives very difficult to due mental abuse. When I was just 9 and my sister was 4, he placed a camera in our rooms to ‘watch over us’ I thought it was for only a day but it turns out it was actually for just about a week. I tried to block out a lot of memories so I didn’t realise it was this long. He also worked for a security company, which sold cameras. So who knows how many times he put cameras in the house. I realised this was the main reason for feeling this way, as well getting told off for every little thing I did, and every time I did something that he didn’t like, even if I was extremely discreet about it, he would always find out.
I wanted to create this project to sort of explore this feeling and to see how the feeling of being watched is very closely related to Hidden Cameras and surveillance and so I sort of wanted to create a project to help people who do not feel this way to understand those who do. Even though this was my intention at the start, it has faded a bit since and is no longer so much about making people understand but about understanding the feeling myself. This project has helped me in ways that even I don’t fully understand, but mostly by depicting small things that he did to make our lives difficult and trying to understand them. So after all of the research and understanding, I have gained from this project, I know am aware that feeling this way is not abnormal, especially in this day and age where technology is everywhere we go. But it is also not necessarily a bad thing, as though feeling like this, I am more aware of my surroundings and I am more careful about the decisions I make. Even though, it is a horrible feeling during most times, is completely normal and understood by many more than I first believed.