INSECURE

An invitation to own your insecurities... without letting them own you.

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A Line To Keep

“What we acknowledge, we can examine. What we own, we can choose what to do with.”

A reflection on how labels become stories

What if the words people use to describe you slowly become the way you see yourself?

We often think of labels as simple descriptions: insecure, needy, selfish, too much. But what happens when a word stops describing something you did and starts defining who you are? In this companion piece to INSECURE, we look at how labels shape our sense of self, how other people's perceptions can become our own, and what happens when we learn to separate a behaviour from an identity.

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Behind the Film

A few references that shaped INSECURE — and the belief that the labels we carry don’t have to define who we become.

Music — Liability by Lorde

The fear that being yourself is too much.

Liability gives a voice to the uncomfortable feeling that something about you might simply be too much — too sensitive, too needy, too complicated. There is no attempt to fix it, only the quiet recognition of what it feels like to wonder whether being yourself makes you harder to love. Maybe insecurity begins when we start editing ourselves before anyone else gets the chance.

Culture — Selfiecity

What does a selfie say about us?

Selfiecity turned something seemingly trivial — the selfie — into an object of cultural research. Thousands of self-portraits from five cities were analysed for poses, expressions, angles and patterns, revealing how differently people construct an image of themselves. The selfie is more than a picture of ourselves. It is a tiny negotiation between who we are, how we want to be seen, and how we imagine other people are looking at us. Maybe that's why one photo can take twenty attempts.

Art — Your Body Is a Battleground by Barbara Kruger

When words become part of the image.

Barbara Kruger's work shows how a few words can completely change the way we see an image — and perhaps ourselves. Her language confronts the messages we absorb about how we should look, behave and be perceived. That's what makes her work resonate with INSECURE: a label can attach itself to an image until it starts to feel like the truth. A few syllables can become a way of seeing.

Cinema — The Worst Person in the World by Joachim Trier

Everyone else seems to know who they are.

Julie moves through relationships, ambitions and versions of herself without ever feeling entirely certain she's chosen the right one. She changes her mind, compares herself and wonders who she might have been. The film understands that insecurity isn't always about feeling inadequate — sometimes it's the suspicion that everyone else has received instructions for how to live, and somehow yours got lost. Maybe being unfinished is part of becoming yourself.

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