Behind Glasses Are Sad Eyes by John Delante

Displacement as part of the human condition are feelings originated from someone redirected to a particular person or an object. However, my feelings of displacement translate to a place by which the setting situates between land and sea. The mise-en-scéne is connected through a familiarity while I was in the Philippines. Symbolically, the land presents as my past while the sea oppositely embraces the uncertainty of my future. By photographing landscapes, found objects, and self-portraiture, the project captures the relationship between my psyche and the place.

Behind Glasses Are Sad Eyes is an introspection project to remind how human mortality is gentle. A visual soliloquy performed through dressing to highlight my coming-of-age anxiety of growing up. My feelings of anxiety were generated from getting constant pressure to fit in the molds of traditional masculinity. Landscapes and detailed objects emotionally expressed the collective memories of my childhood while giving myself hope for a better future. The classic notion of drifting from Debord’s Theory of Derive refers to be drawn by attractions of the present, including letting go what generates the cause of displacement. The project is a form of meditation to come to terms those complexed feelings.