Ilona Abdelfattah is an Austrian-Egyptian musician and music therapist. She is the co-founder of different storytelling-initiatives including the association Hekayat – Geschichtenkollektiv. Alongside her community and cultural work, she explores other forms of artistic expression like poetry, songwriting and photography.
Between The Lines
What happens when two places that are often perceived as separate or even opposed begin to reveal unexpected parallels?
Through my project Between The Lines, I want to challenge the idea that our homes are simply geographic places. Perhaps they are also symbolic spaces that intersect within us — not binaries we have to choose between, but representations of a feeling. Each photograph is an expression of my love for home and my longing for belonging.
Between The Lines is an invitation to think beyond boxes and prefabricated images of “us” and an often vaguely defined “other”, and to shift the focus towards the connections, parallels and spaces between supposedly separate worlds. It is about challenging the categories through which we learn to see places, and asking whether identity can exist not as a choice between two sides, but in the space between them.