Still Connecting...

This piece is a self portrait, of sorts, that shows me at every year of my life. It is an attempt to encompass what coming of age in 2020 looks like. I thought, “what is more 2020 than a Zoom meeting?” This is a Zoom meeting between myself in 2020 and my younger selves that represents how the different parts of me all make up who I am today. I created this piece by sifting through the many pictures of me growing up, choosing one from each year, and editing the pictures to look like somebody took a screenshot of a zoom meeting between all the different years. I worked on it over a few weeks, changing my mind about which pictures to use about every two seconds, before finally deciding on the final pictures. It was fun to look back at all the pictures of me and my family throughout the years and see how we have all changed. It also felt like stepping into a different world;sitting on my couch in quarantine but at the same time watching myself grow up. I scrolled through pictures of countless birthday parties, Hanukkahs, New Years, family gatherings, new additions to the family, and quite a few temper tantrums. I think a big part of coming of age is looking back through your past, because your past is what shaped the person you are today. Coming of age and being a teenager is about becoming your own person and being more independent. I think that in 2020 coming of age looks very different from other years. I can’t break away from my parents in the same way because I have to stay home with them all the time. I can’t be a teenagerout with my friends like I wish I could be, because there is a global pandemic. So instead of coming of age in the normal way, we have been forced to come of age in a different way, by looking back at our past, who we were, who we are today, and who we want to be in the future. Who I will be in 2021 hasn’t fully joined the Zoom meeting yet, because as 2020 draws to a close and we enter 2021,we will all become different people, and who knows what those people will be like.