My installation project, titled "Conformity is Infinite," seeks to delve into the complex and often fraught relationship between conformity and individual agency. At its core, my project is driven by a central question: to what extent do societal pressures and cultural values influence our behavior and choices, and how do we resist or challenge these norms? Every day, we are confronted with a range of expectations and social norms that shape our behavior, from values like kindness and empathy to more concrete concepts such as the protection of private property and respect for human dignity. While these values serve as a powerful form of social glue, they can also be exploited and twisted to justify atrocities. For example, the Holocaust and the rise of Communism were both in part a reflection of the destructive power of conformity, as individuals succumbed to pressure to conform to a particular ideology or belief system.

The second part of my project in an installation work that features video clips, social media posts, and online journal I have collected from documentaries, films, and social media all around the world in which people say “I don’t have choice.”  I realized, as I watched many documentaries, that people often will “blame” their past behaviors on the belief that they had no choice. But I question what the opposite of conformity is and whether non-conformity is a kind of freedom that really exists. These documentaries and clips reminded me of moments when I have also felt like I have had no choice but to do something I didn’t want to. After I collected nearly three-thousand pieces about people showing conformity online and on social media, I started to write some poems based on the information I have collected. This second section consists of two distinct elements: a display of Instagram posts related to conformity displayed on an iPhone, and poems about conformity displayed on the wall with accompanying projections.