#identity

#identity

As a Japanese man born and raised in the United States, Kitamura said he struggled with imposter syndrome. Though he was part of a Japanese tattoo family, apprenticed to a Japanese tattoo master, and works with primarily Japanese-American clients, he worried that his own style was Americanized compared to the traditions he was studying. Now, nearly 29 years into his own practice as a tattoo artist (Kitamura opened his own studio, State of Grace Tattoo, in 2002 in San Jose) he feels "This is me accepting who I am and being proud of that," he said.

I packed my bag, kissed the kids goodbye, and skipped out the door, not out of neglect, but necessity. I was off for a weekend of no kids, no bedtime stories, and no reapplying sunscreen on wriggly bodies. We sat in lounge chairs, read books, drank bottomless cocktails, and didn't check the time or see if anyone needed to eat to avoid a meltdown.

I know I mentioned my profession to him, but I am pretty sure he was the one who engaged me that way. I also know how diabolically good a chatbot can be at saying what is on the tip of your tongue, and doing it before you can, and better than you might have. That makes me feel less troubled by my uncertainty.

Bear's Nap by Emily Gravett, Two Hoots, 12.99 Someone is cheeping and keeping Bear from sleeping in this increasingly uproarious picture book filled with forest-dwelling creatures and their noises. A joy to read aloud. This Is Who I Am by Rashmi Sirdeshpande, illustrated by Ruchi Mhasane, Andersen, 12.99 A moving celebration of heritage and identity, this softly coloured picture book follows a little girl with a foot in two worlds, who is both the richness of all the worlds she belongs to and uniquely, proudly

Characters in the "Alien" franchise have always wrestled with identity crises. Whether it's human beings trying to transcend the limits of their finitude through interstellar travel, or synthetic machines passing themselves off as humans, there's always a disconnect with one's baseline identity that drives protagonists and antagonists alike. "Alien: Earth," the first television series set in the franchise and set two years before Ridley Scott's original film, continues this existential tradition but through the experiences of two new entities.

Howard Atelier introduces Chapter One: "The Facade You Wore," a collection that reimagines the hat as a sculptural mask, rooted in the language of performance and concealment. Each piece inhabits the liminal space between public persona and the private self, dissolving the distinction between wearer and observer. Through streamlined designs, the collection probes the tension of identity: the interplay of anonymity and expression, exposure and secrecy.

Vlaemsch (chez moi) is Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's love letter to his native Flanders. Like so many love letters, it's full of anger, pain and recrimination. Its tone is by turns overblown, infuriated, accusatory, ironic and tender. It is, nonetheless, a love letter in the guise of a piece of dance-theatre. Cherkaoui's background is as complex as that of his native Flanders. He was born in Antwerp, the son of a Moroccan father and a Flemish mother;

Two months after moving to London, I received the offer I had always dreamed about: I would work in news publicity at the BBC. I couldn't believe my fortune. It was one of those "pinch me" moments that made all the sacrifices, visa paperwork, and career risks feel worth it. I had grown up watching the network from across the globe and imagined what it would be like to walk the halls of such a prestigious institution.

The Special Presentations description at TIFF is as laconic as it is cogent: "High-profile premieres and the world's leading filmmakers." The films in this dispatch boast star all-star casts and tell coming-of-age stories of a sort, but they're really stories about people who have to accept parts of themselves they'd rather keep hidden, and begrudgingly accept ways community can help ground them while all else spirals out of control.

The capsule wardrobe concept, popularized in the 1970s by Susie Faux, proposes an exercise in synthesis: a compact set of versatile pieces, capable of combining in countless ways to suit different occasions. In visual culture, there are a few metaphors for this: in cartoons like Doug Funnie or Dexter's Laboratory, opening the closet revealed rows of identical clothes, ready to simplify life (and, in the case of animators, the work).

Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon's brilliant nonfiction book about parenting children different from oneself, offers the useful distinction between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities are inherited a family name, an ethnicity, or a nationality; horizontal identities are qualities that define us which parents may have nothing to do with, such as the kinship people with autism feel with one another, or being gay or deaf.

Her instructors had warned her that if she wanted a real shot at making it as an actress in the US, she'd have to "fix" her accent. Paltrow's voice - crisp, polished, "full of money," as Gatsby says of Daisy's - became the model. "My teachers were like, Gwyneth Paltrow will be your way in," Novi recalls. When she came across the Goop tutorial, something clicked.

Sophie Green documents the culture on her doorstep; she's fascinated by who - and what - makes British culture, and its "layered, joyful, and often quietly resistant" communities. Sophie's new book, Tangerine Dreams, is the culmination of a decade of documentation, covering Aladura Spiritualist congregations, modified street car communities, marching bands, dance troupes, British cowboys, dog shows, horse racing fans, Peckham afro hair salons, and Irish dancers.

A few weeks ago, Jason came back from a reporting trip to Barbados and made a comment about how some Bajans thought he was from the Caribbean, because his accent changed when he was there. This was fascinating to me. The ensuing discussion made me realise that all of us had shifted our accents at various times, which got me thinking about all the unconscious ways in which we code switch, alternating between different identities.

I felt like I was asking her if she wanted to make out. The Big Lebowski-the 1998 Coen-brothers movie about bowling, pot, and mistaken identity-is one of my favorites, and I was nervous about introducing it to her. I like to use Lebowski quotes as a way to assert myself while, like Jeff Bridges's character, "the Dude," not taking things too seriously.

working as the library manager at the International Center of Photography, overseeing projects for Dashwood, and producing zines through her publishing house, Matarile Ediciones. Spending her days poring over others' work, some titles have shaped her idea of what makes a photo book truly remarkable - from Carmen Winant's My Birth, with its tactile documentation of women in labour, to Nobuyoshi Araki's Winter Journey, which sequences his wife's final days in hospital and their honeymoon in a moving, elegiac rhythm.

Every week in my psychology practice, I meet people from around the world who share stories marked by loss, hope, fear, love, displacement, and resilience. Listening to them has deepened my understanding of how culture and tradition influence identity, relationships, and a sense of belonging. Yet I also see how these very foundations can be used to justify war, leaving individuals and families caught in an impossible dilemma: whether to uphold

After turning heads with his breakout presentation at NADA Miami last winter, Lee Moriarty is stepping back into the spotlight with Balance, his first solo exhibition. Opening September 27 at Night Gallery in Los Angeles and curated by Adam Abdalla, the show marks a striking debut that blurs the lines between performance art, wrestling culture, and personal identity. Through eight new works, Moriarty shifts focus away from the spectacle of the ring and toward the quieter, more vulnerable realities of the luchadores who inhabit it.

"I found something deeply healing about the Adriatic coast after everything that happened," says Ida. That same healing blue is the colour that dominates her new photography and print project Blue Valentines, a love letter to identity, migration and fractal communication through cyanotypes. "Photography, because of its widespread availability, reproducibility, and omnipresence, carries a powerful communicative potential," says Ida. "In that sense, it acts almost like the perfect migrant - a medium that can be sent anywhere across the globe, continually transforming along the way."

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I had a lot of favourite items of clothing: scrunchy turquoise cargo trousers with an elasticated waistband, grey suede pixie boots, a skimpy beach T-shirt with the word Hawaii written on it (a place I have never visited), a Cyndi Lauper-inspired ra-ra skirt with ruffles in pink, white and, yes, turquoise. But there were so many objects of desire that I was not permitted to acquire: crinkle-effect stilettos, a Frankie Say Relax T-shirt, jelly shoes, drainpipe jeans, a matador hat like the ones Mel & Kim wore Also out of my reach for most of my teens was the thing I wanted most: the effect of a whole outfit.

"Precipice Don't lose your footing The wall might be a floor" I type this list into my Notes app as I visit Lily Wong's studio. In her work, she plays with the tenses and outlines of narrative. There is a flexibility here. A reliable narrator is not to be found. The older you get, the less sure you are of your fixed personhood. How open can you leave a story?

When Theo loses his mother in a museum bombing, the rupture is instant, but the collapse stretches across years. Grief hollows him out and leaves him spiraling without an anchor.