In my recent art project titled “Jackets”, the concepts of humanity, labor and industrial space contrast with natural and abstract backgrounds in asymmetrical and large dimensions, set against a green and pink backdrop. The use of the orange jacket as a symbol of labor life and daily existence is depicted in human forms in a minimalist and repetitive manner, reflecting the lost individuality of the worker amidst hyper-industrial and modern mechanised processes.

The jackets are, in a sense, a collection of “figures and portraits” of workers that, beyond their functional role, signify aspects of life, daily routines, and personal memories while dissolving the existential identity of the labourer. Each figure is narrating its own story. At times, one figure appears to engage in conversation, while another rests her/his hands behind head, attentively listening. However, this figure does not exist in reality; rather, it serves as a faint memory of a moment in the past. In essence, all existential characteristics coalesce around an empty figure to construct an identity derived from a blurred collective-historical memory. This project empirically investigates the symbolic and psychological relationships between objects and the workers to whom these objects once belonged—not the opposite—endeavouring to create an “embodied identity” within the worn industrial items.

I worked in various industrial companies for a while, I was affected by profound transformation in my perception of the world and humanity. Each morning, I observed the same individuals exhibiting familiar behaviors and highly variable temperaments, as they killed their time in hoping of the weekend. Through this time-slaughtering, they engaged in the creation of memories, relationships—both loving and hostile—and moments of joy and amusement, collectively embodying the essence of “life”. Occasionally, I heard one of my colleagues passed away last night, just some hours later we wished each other a good evening! Over time, the faces of these individuals faded, leaving behind only the orange jackets they wore, which appeared to age and deteriorate before my eyes. The once vibrant colors of orange became dull and indistinct. I see them through their holes, and I watch the transforming of their personality to some clothes and dust.

It seems to me a religious ritual was taking place every morning to pray to an unseen God and asking to forgive our sin to be an individual identity. And God accepts our regret at the price of erasing their faces. A modern sacrifice. One morning when I got up to go to work, I saw nothing in the mirror. I took my brush to paint it back in the mirror. But it was disappointing. I could only paint what exists around my hole-identity. My whole memories surrounded my hole.

It explores how human become trapped in the rigid structure of capitalism and capital accumulation, highlighting the endless struggle between individual identity and gigantic economic systems. At times, we see a human form, or rather a jacket devoid of humanity, at the center of an expansive green or pink space, as if abandoned in a disintegrating world, suspended and adrift. The use of neon and vibrant colours embodies a kind of deconstruction where the boundaries between reality and representation dissolve.