Aku Melayu
Self-portrait of me navigating through my Malay identity and markers that define Malayness. How does a Malay look like? How do you know if a person is Malay? Without these tangible identity markers of my Malayness, can you still tell that I’m Malay?
PROCESS
Took it in landscape so I cropped it out for portrait. First thing I did was to remove the half closed eye by cloning the area under the eyes to make them seem closed. Spot heal, clone stamp, and dodge and burn the image to remove the ‘stache and some patchy areas of the skin.
Using Separation Frequency, I adjust the colours by using the lasso tool to smoothen certain areas so that the texture looks more blended.
ARCHIVE
Initially my concept was to make my skin look golden; statuesque. To give off an orientalist notion of what Malayness is and the performative nature of my dance navigating my Malayness in the community.