Where do I belong?

For this piece, I wanted to communicate that I feel alienated from society, unable to belong to a particular group fully. Whether that be culture/nationality/gender-related, I never felt like I fit into their norms. Despite not being multi-raced or being an immigrant etc… I seem to struggle with my single Japanese nationality, perhaps because I've been attending an international school since the age of 2. That said, I am also not confident with my knowledge of western culture and perspective, which leaves me in this ambivalent middle-ground of nothingness. Furthermore, my previously unhealthy relationship with food had damaged my mindset to be sensitive about the diet culture steeped in every society. My inability to drift my eyes apart from the toxicity of diet culture has drifted me apart, giving me no space to “belong” properly. 

I thought of trees to represent this feeling because I was reading the graphic novel “Vietnamerica,” which features a scene quoting Confucius saying, “A man without history is a man without roots.” To me, this signified that I would be growing aimlessly if I did not find a place where I come from, and thus in my piece, I draw myself as a rootless tree, striving to find a place to belong. By illustrating my hands in a manner grasping at the life that seems to unfold in front of me, I try to show how I want to root myself in some sort of community.