The Confession Lately in my work I’ve been focusing on my identity and my upbringing and the things that influenced me and made me the person I am today. I realized throughout last year I completely forgot who I am in order to fit into structures and social constructs that were projected on me but also created by myself. It felt scary to realize that something I really fought for my whole life (my identity) has become something that I completely lost sense of. I objectified myself, forgot that I am still a living breathing human creature. I understood that I disassociate from myself. I think disassociation is a common aspect of queer identity. Everyone is projecting on you their standards, expectations and assumptions, which you try to fit, because as a child you just want to be loved and feel safe and your life depends on your parents/caretakers. However you learn to not trust your gut, you learn to suppress your real identity in order to fit and that’s only a few examples of how this disassociation happens. You learn to not trust yourself and hate yourself. I think that a lot of queer people have this performative layer/aspect to their personality. That’s also me. It’s a coping mechanism, it’s also something that you do your whole life (for example my whole childhood I acted straight to fit in, or you act straight to not get assaulted or so on). Life as a performance. This is my confession. I’m trying to find a way to get back to myself. This work is about all of this mentioned above, it’s an accumulation of sadness, trauma, self-hate, anger, frustration, loneliness, violence and longing for belonging, it’s filled with all of these negative emotions, but ultimately it’s about healing. I want to say thank you to everyone who believes in me because I stopped believing in myself a long time ago. Your trust and love is something that helps me get through tough days. It makes me more of a fighter. Also I want to thank @dominik_gajarsky and Michal Pěchouček for guidance and help along the way. Thank you @joanie_gm_ and @tomas_visnovsky for the pictures Let’s heal together through art, creativity and most importantly through love. Ďakujem! ❤️ Bystrík