I started clicking a picture as I’d lock the door behind me, another in the nights I couldn’t sleep due to fear and paranoia, capturing the light from the windows on the early mornings when I was safe and all alone.

Protecting Myself is a series of photographs from my daily life, whilst I remain surrounded by various kinds of violence. This violence not only threatens me but other vulnerable members of my household as well. I am still fairly young and don’t possess the most physical strength, rendering me incapable of defending myself against stronger individuals.

One night, after a violent incident, I sat in the living room for hours to make sure that a sleeping member of my family remained safe throughout the night. During this, I took an image of my view on my phone. Gradually, I started doing this more and more, clicking a picture as I’d lock the door behind me every time I’d enter my bedroom, clicking another one in the nights I couldn’t sleep due to fear and paranoia, capturing the light from the windows on the early mornings when I was safe and all alone, and so on.

This resulted in the creation of a series of works, of repetitive daily ‘tasks’, of sorts, which were my way of protecting myself, and revolting in my own way as an artist. I come from a culture where domestic violence is seen as an inevitability in marriage, and always a women’s issue. A man being at the receiving end of any oppression is always just the fault of the ‘weaker man’.

I continued clicking these images and developing this body of work to firstly, limelight the reality of men being abused and secondly, to defy the archetypes associated with depictions of domestic violence, which always depict the physical abuse and related dimensions of it. By showing such mundane and simplistic visuals I want to depict the psychologically scarring, paranoia inducing side of domestic violence- something which goes beyond the physical body and rather relates to the delicacy of the human psyche.