Diogo Duarte "Unconscious commands and judgements of our century"

"La revanche dans les latrines"

"Baptism"

"Untitled"


"Once more in remorse sinks"


"Amnesty, said she somberly"

"The Wall (by and for Christine)"

Unconscious Commands and Judgements of Our Century is an ongoing long-term self-portrait series I started in 2013, at a moment in my life when my internal sense of self was clinically coming apart at the seams. Since then, I have been reflectively photographing myself with the objective of telling the story of growing up as a gay child in Portugal during the mid-nineties and contemplating its effects on how I perceive myself today. I am interested in documenting what happened when the normative became undesirable, the permissible mundane and the obligatory contradicting, vague and problematic. I attempt to look back and determine whether it is at all possible to healthily construct an identity whilst running through a checklist of the normative, the permissible and the obligatory. In a society full of contradictions as far as gender identity and sexuality is concerned; where the camp is ok but only in certain arenas, and femininity acceptable only as long as the bathroom door is closed; it was also my intention to create an inner dialogue of acceptance to deal with what was left from years of being (a) bull(y)-ied, ultimately resulting in a portfolio of mental health problems. Looking back at my childhood, I often have the impulse to portray things as I wish they had been, not as they were, a portrayal that is still nevertheless a reflection of the many 'layers' that crept in at different stages of development to cope in such an environment. Now, as the series reaches Part II, I aim to reach out to other people going through the experience of not fitting, not belonging and tell them it is ok to never fit and never belong, or so my therapist said.