Toni Ahvenainen
Distinction
Day 23 of 365
We feel the borders, but avoid to acknowledge them. Every day they run invisibly across districts and streets. Stratified into culture they organize the city and categorize people. It's a way we dress our self, what we eat and what kind of literature we appreciate. What kind of taste we have, who we know and to whom we answer. How we speak and look to each other. How we touch and are being touched by others. It's how we exist and who we are.
Once you learn to observe and evaluate the world in terms of these boundaries you can never see it same way again. You will leave the valley of childhood and step into world of class hierarchies and social order. Like everyone else, you will subjugate to an act of distinction and take part in a social struggle, in which people protect their achieved positions, separate themselves from others and try to find new ways to climb higher. It is, in its essence, an everyday symbolic violence: mostly unconscious but always visible acts of social domination, which we are all forced to engage to maintain social hierarchies and order. It is a frightening sight behind what we consider 'normal', but with time you adjust to it and together with borders it becomes invisible again - you feel the borders, but avoid to acknowledge them.
Year of the Alpha – 365 Days of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com
Distinction
Day 23 of 365
We feel the borders, but avoid to acknowledge them. Every day they run invisibly across districts and streets. Stratified into culture they organize the city and categorize people. It's a way we dress our self, what we eat and what kind of literature we appreciate. What kind of taste we have, who we know and to whom we answer. How we speak and look to each other. How we touch and are being touched by others. It's how we exist and who we are.
Once you learn to observe and evaluate the world in terms of these boundaries you can never see it same way again. You will leave the valley of childhood and step into world of class hierarchies and social order. Like everyone else, you will subjugate to an act of distinction and take part in a social struggle, in which people protect their achieved positions, separate themselves from others and try to find new ways to climb higher. It is, in its essence, an everyday symbolic violence: mostly unconscious but always visible acts of social domination, which we are all forced to engage to maintain social hierarchies and order. It is a frightening sight behind what we consider 'normal', but with time you adjust to it and together with borders it becomes invisible again - you feel the borders, but avoid to acknowledge them.
Year of the Alpha – 365 Days of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com