“The 21st century has emerged as a century of enhanced globalisation, forced a reorganisation of new economic models of ruthlessly competitive production and witnessed the establishment of a plethora of media platforms. These evolving characteristics of society have changed how we perceive our own identities and raised questions relative to whether we define ourselves based solely on the common conventions of identity such as ethnicity, nationality and religion. This project Performance Anxiety seeks to address, through a form of personal narrative, this question of perceived identity – a key theme in art for centuries. Beginning with an exploration of the meaning of cultural belonging—the understanding of shared myths, customs, symbols, and jargon, and their underlying subtext I identify the importance of these shared experiences in a range of cultural contexts. By isolating indexes of both my Jewish heritage and an affiliation with surfing subculture I deliberately position them within the conventions of media narratives and clichés. Therefore creating an amalgamation of iconic emblems becoming a type of performance in which we all take part, each presenting our own cultural alignments and involving an interaction with the audience, shifting between action and reaction.” – Ben Rak
