Series - FotoSlovo 2026 - Category « Fine Art »

Fitar is a visual intervention that challenges how internet algorithms and social media platforms misrepresent the Timorese diaspora in the United Kingdom. In the digital landscape, cultural identity is often reduced to fragmented, pixelated data; a "digital ghost" shaped by automated systems rather than lived experience. This project seeks to reclaim that narrative by moving the image away from the screen and back into the physical world.

The series begins by exposing this digital distortion, illustrating the cold, fractured way our community is perceived online. It then transitions into the grounded, quiet reality of daily life and the heavy physical labour that sustains our existence in a new geography. At the centre of this journey is the ancestral anchor, a vibrant reminder of a heritage that remains undiluted by modern displacement.

As a visual artist, my response to digital misrepresentation is rooted in tactile craft. By manually cutting and weaving printed photographs, I physically disrupt the flat, disposable surface of the digital image. This act of weaving is a deliberate choice to "mend" what the algorithm has broken. It transforms the photograph from a fleeting data point into a permanent, tactile object. Fitar is a declaration of presence; it proves that Timorese identity is a complex, living construction that cannot be fully captured or contained by a machine.