As lot of you already know and it is obvious from my posts, that I really love to travel. Besides traveling I also enjoying very much to capture photos of beautiful destinations I am visiting.
Something you probably don’t know about me is that I very often tend to add symbolism in my everyday life and my surrounding.
If you don’t understand the meaning of the word itself I will try to explain it to you. Adding symbolism is actually using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind.
There is a whole science involved with this subject and it’s called Symbolic anthropology. It’s actually the study of cultural symbols and how those symbols can be interpreted to improve understanding of a particular society.
I personally enjoy very much to use symbols, motifs and metaphors in everything I am involved with. Starting with my conversations, creative writing, painting, and my design work.
A motif is something that creates a repeated design. In a story, a motif is an element repeated throughout the narrative, used to lead towards obvious effects. Using repeated motifs and symbols is how you create a conceptual design and concepts in general.
Some symbols are ingrained so deeply in our social psyche that they are used in almost every story or concept. That’s because we are particularly attracted to certain things without realizing why. Symbols can add a considerable amount of depth to a concept or story.
The power of these symbols lies in the fact that they already have been accepted deep into the readers’ or audience subconscious minds.
That’s because designers always use storyboards when they are building an idea or the new concepts. The storyboard is actually a board made of illustrations or images displayed in sequences as an inspiration in order to visualize an idea of a certain concept. Those storyboards always follow certain color schemes, motifs and symbols.
Anyhow, I think that anything can be considered symbolic in the right frame of mind. I can’t explain the reason why but I really like to capture images of doors in general. Doors always attract my attention wherever I go.
Trying to find some sort of symbolism in it I realized that I’m mostly attracted to capture the pictures of the closed and mostly old doors than the open and the new ones.
This probably has to do with my state of mind, and the constant feeling where I can’t see a way out from my current situation. But it can also mean that I tend to hide a lot of what is going on in my life not only from others but sometimes even from myself. But it can also express my curiosity, and desire to know what’s behind those doors.
A door or doorway in general symbolizes the transition and passageway from one place to another. A door is often used to symbolize the passage from one world to another in religion, mythology, and literature.
The question is what does a closed door mean for me? As most of the people I’m also literally using the doors to enter or exit the outside world. Does that mean that I’m going through a type of transition each time I pass trough the door? Probably it does. In my house I am mostly wearing my pajamas or something comfortable, I don’t wear any make up and and I usually have my long hair in a bun.
When I go outside of my house, I am dressing up, putting some make up, fixing my hair, wearing my best smile and presenting the best version of myself to the outside world. Is this something that most of us do on the daily basis, right?
From the other side, in my own eyes the doors as a symbol are associated with privacy, control, and protection much more than a welcoming.
This is probably connected with my past life experience. I had quite miserable marriage life. I was a victim of psychological and domestic violence and manipulation inside of my home. I was desperately trying to hide my reality and all of my problems from everybody, behind my closed doors constantly.
Why I was doing this? I still don’t have the answer. Maybe as I already mentioned above, we all tend to show our best version to the outside world. Maybe because I was raised by very strong, single mother, who taught me to be strong and proud as she is. But there is one big difference, my mom was always strong and she still remains strong.
When I was young I was also strong and very creative person. But I lost myself on the way. How? I can’t explain. Somebody who was never a victim of abusive and manipulative relationship could never understand as much as I could try to explain it. So I will skip the explanation, at least for now.
Actually I wasn’t even living my life, I was playing a role of a happy and fulfilled mom and housewife. But I was everything but happy back then. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was going trough though and I’m still hiding from others a lot.
Possibly I never believed that anybody will have any understanding for me out there. I can give you one simple example. Once upon the time when I was still married, I tried to open up regarding my marriage struggles to a person that is very close to me. This person is my favorite aunt, my childhood idol and a person that I admire and love very much. I hopped that she was going to understand me and support me.
She said to me, without even let me finish up what’s was in my mind, that my problems are nothing comparing to some other problems, such as health problems, economical, existence problems, etc. She advised me to stay calm and strong. She said that most of the women are going through similar issues. I was hopping that she could give me a sense of power and confidence, unfortunately the only message I received from her was a sense of vulnerability and weakness.
The last sentence she said to me in order to cut this conversation really stubbed me directly in my heart. She said: ”It is better to be somebody’s wife, whoever it is, than to be nobody’s wife, nowadays”.
At this point I realized that people who haven’t been in your shoes and who don’t have a clue what is happening behind your closed doors can never understand, even some of them will make you believe that they do. But believe me they don’t, they are just curious.
That’s reality, unfortunately. Thank God, somehow I find my way out of the misery and the darkness of my heavy depression. I turned the page and moved on with my life. I want to believe that I am free now. But am I really, or not yet?
If I am completely free then why I am still attracted to the closed doors? Probably the most logical and symbolic explanation is that no matter how much you develop yourself and you change your lifestyle, your past will always chase you for the rest of your life.
No matter how hard you are trying to push away some unpleasant memories from your past, there are always hidden somewhere deep in your soul and they will never go away as long as you live. Unless you got Alzheimer.
Anyhow, I hope you liked my story and my door images. I wish I could afford one day to print some of those images in the large scale or even in natural size, and exhibit them in some art galleries.
My goal is to raise the awareness regarding the domestic violence through this exhibition and my story. I wish that I could monetize those photos in order to help and support the victims of domestic violence, mainly the weak women as myself to stand up on their feet again. Life could be beautiful for all of us, we just have to stay strong and never give up on ourselves.
Unfortunately there are a lot of ladies who are still suffering behind the closed doors and nobody cares or has a clue about what is really going on in their lives.
If anybody is able to help me and support me, in order to reach my goal, every help is welcomed. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Feel free to comment and share.
Embrace yourself, embrace the world 