Self-Defense I

Self-Defense I considers the small psychological strategies we carry into everyday life, often without noticing them. Withdrawal, silence, attack, avoidance, passive aggression, humour, emotional distance. Different situations call up different responses, and over time these responses become almost instinctive, ready to appear whenever something in us feels exposed.

I imagined these defenses as small daggers worn close to the body. They are protective, but they are also sharp. What keeps vulnerability at a distance can just as easily shape the way we approach other people, sometimes protecting us before we have even decided whether protection is necessary.

The daggers sit around the neck, one of the body’s most exposed areas and, symbolically, the space between thought and feeling. I wanted them to resemble jewellery, something carried so routinely that its danger becomes almost decorative. In this sense,Self-DefenseI is less about moments of obvious conflict than about the quieter fact that we move through ordinary life already equipped with ways of defending ourselves.