“As a teenager I almost died from anorexia and although recovered, there remained a self-loathing at the center of a life created to be high functioning, leaving me with discomfort looking in the mirror let alone being in front of a camera.”

During the Covid-19 lockdown, having lost the ability to photograph other people, I started taking self-portraits for the first time. In the pause away from the world, I could hear the discomfort inside myself I had long avoided.

I began to understand that belonging was something I lost not just in the world I was now cut off from but also in my physical house and family, within my clothing and my own skin - long before the lockdown. As a teenager I almost died from anorexia and although recovered, there remained a self-loathing at the center of a life created to be high functioning, leaving me with discomfort looking in the mirror let alone being in front of a camera.

This was compounded by a first-generation Indian American identity often not feeling belonging in either culture. I started the project almost as a self-dare to finally open Pandora's box and face its contents. Self-portraiture enabled confronting a false exterior perfection and unleashing the childhood trauma that had been inhibiting me to fully connect with my life.

In the process of creating these photographs I uncovered ugly and beautiful, ultimately discovering profound healing. I found permission for the first time to love and accept all of me, unconditionally.