I learned how to survive my teenage years through Tumblr, music, and the distant glow of celebrities and musicians I admired. In the absence of a safe space in my physical world, the internet became a refuge—a place where I could experiment, observe, and exist without explanation. While creating this project, I returned to the bruises of adolescence: bullying, verbal abuse, and the quiet isolation that shaped my early understanding of myself. Online, I found community. I found permission to question who I was and who I could become.

This work reimagines a moment when cultures and subcultures existed without apology or judgment. Through collage, I draw from soft grunge and indie aesthetics—visual languages that allowed identity to be fluid, gender to feel expansive, and self-expression to exist outside rigid definitions.

The images move through emotional states of instability, madness, and depression. Using photography and collage, I explore how people, objects, and memories shift in meaning over time. What once appeared as rainbows and sunshine gradually transforms into storms and snowstorms. This emotional weather mirrors my evolving relationship with identity, gender, and self-understanding—marking an early attempt to make sense of myself through image-making. This project stands as a foundation for my current practice, where personal experience, transformation, and self-discovery remain central.