In this photo series, I explore the connection between memory, identity, and personal experience. Although I’ve never been particularly fond of cooking, I’ve always been fascinated by the transformation of raw ingredients into a dish, especially in the context of tasting menus. There’s an alchemy to this process, a way in which disparate elements come together to form something entirely new. This transformation mirrors how we shape our identities over time, piecing together fragments of memory and experience into a cohesive sense of self.

Inspired by this idea, I have created a series of photographs that imagine a menu composed of my own experiences. What if you could “taste” my life through the raw materials of emotion and memory? This work isn’t about literal flavor but rather the essence of experience, how it is layered, reinterpreted, and reshaped over time.

Just as a chef selects, transforms, and arranges incongruous ingredients into a harmonious dish, I see my identity as a collage of contradicting, unconnected memories that, when held together by a sense of self, create the illusion of a singular, unified whole. Each of the courses in this menu serves a different phase of my life, offering a layered exploration of who I am. Through these images, I invite the audience to engage in a sensory reflection on identity, memory, and transformation.

Enjoy.

1-Tasting a feeling

As a child, I had a light lemon-colored doll that I adored. I’m not sure why I was so drawn to it. Perhaps it was the shape of its eyes or the gentle expression it seemed to have. I called it my “Kind Yellow.” Many years have passed since I last held Kind Yellow, the bear-like doll shown in this image, yet the memory of it lingers. Even now, whenever I see that soft shade of lemon yellow, I feel the same quiet kindness it once brought me. But nostalgia carries both warmth and sorrow. When the world feels different from the one I believed in as a child, every lemon cake tastes like sadness.

2- Tasting the age

You can see my face, my eyes, my lips, but these are only fragments of who I am. My features may appear unchanged, giving the illusion of permanence, yet I am never the same. With each experience, every passing moment, I am shaped and reshaped, allowing my identity to evolve into a dynamic, ever-morphing entity, one that resists solidity, one that resists death.

This series of photographs focuses on my eyes and lips at different ages, capturing the way these familiar parts of me hold different stories as I grow. Though they remain the same in appearance, I am not the person I once was. I am not static, not fixed like a picture. I am in motion, continuously shifting from one moment to the next.

And yet, amidst this constant change, my identity is anchored by a sense of self, layered over time, built upon memories, each one resting on the last.

3- Tasting the Silence

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled to express myself through words. Growing up, I often heard others say that I “eat my words,” a Farsi expression. I only know two languages, and perhaps that is a relief, my “word mixture” is limited to just these two. If I knew more, the combination might not have been as “tasty.”

4- Tasting Expression

Since verbal communication was often difficult for me, I turned to music and painting. In this photograph, I have placed my painting in the dish as a way to express what words couldn’t.

5- Tasting the Empty

On the plate, I have placed a family photo with its figures carefully cut out, leaving only empty silhouettes. This image reflects how my identity was shattered and restructured around what I no longer had after leaving my hometown and being separated from my family. The negative space within the photo embodies their absence, illustrating how my sense of self is now shaped as much by what is missing as by what remains. Sometimes, absence itself becomes a form of presence.

6- Tasting a change

I once had long hair, and one day, I decided to cut it. Afterward, I stood in front of the same mirror, wearing the same dress, and took another photo, one before, one after. I looked different, yet I was still the same person. I kept a lock of my hair and placed it alongside these two images, a tangible reminder of how much I had changed while remaining, in essence, myself.

By Hooria Sanei