Artist Statement:

Why is it that when things are going well, we often feel like an impostor and can’t help but self-sabotage our way to happiness? Why is it that we feel unworthy of love and praise when someone takes an interest in you and your work? Why do we suffer from crippling self-doubt? Because we don't believe we deserve what we want. Self-sabotaging is a subconscious behavior, and some of the worst perpetrators have no idea what they're doing. It means sabotaging your way to your happiness, good relationships, promotion, or recognition. This self-sabotage comes from the fear of success, which causes a lack of confidence and motivation. There is a feeling of anxiousness about acquiring new responsibilities. All of this starts to feel like a mental weight that we carry around everywhere we go. 

In this project, I made a ball and chain, using a 30-inch paper lantern, covered completely in colorful flowers. The flowers represent the daily mental weight that I carry with me. This weight causes a lack of motivation to do things. Every task, no matter how small, feels like a burden to complete. Through this series, I am showing how this mental weight would look if it was a real, physical burden attached to me. The exaggerated size of the ball shows how heavy the burden is for me but the colorful flower despite representing the mental weight also represents how the weight is not bad all the time but helpful sometimes in pushing myself to work even harder, and is the weight of the things that I need to do in order to achieve my goals. The photographs and the video show how this beautiful ball of burden has become part of my everyday life. I am showing how I have to drag the ball wherever I go, how it acts as a weight constantly pulling me under, holding me back, and finally how it interacts with the environment while I go by my routine. 

I chose this project to better understand myself and the concept of self-sabotaging. and how it affects my life. By doing this, I'm trying to know myself and my thoughts a little better, and simultaneously work on improving my habit of self-sabotaging situations.