Braided Memories is a photographic project that explores identity, memory and cultural belonging through double and multiple exposures on 35mm film. The project began with a roll of film that was accidentally double exposed in 2022, resulting in unexpected visual combinations. This coincidence inspired the artist to develop multiple exposure as a method to reflect on how the different layers of his identity coexist, often imperceptibly yet always present, like moments, places and emotions overlapping in time.

Over the course of a year and a half, the artist documented places where he has lived, grown up and feels a strong sense of attachment, both in Norway and Pakistan. In addition to photographing surroundings that feel like home, he also turned his camera toward the quiet and the everyday, fleeting moments from daily life. Some rolls of film were reused up to thirty times, gradually building up the images layer by layer. This repeated use created unpredictable blends of motifs, textures and light, a visual narrative shaped by memory, movement and chance.

As Walter Benjamin described, memories are never fixed archives but fragments, layers of experience reshaped by the moment we inhabit. Some parts emerge with sharpness, others fade into mist, but together they form a whole that can never be recreated. The result is dreamlike, abstract compositions that symbolize the complexity of identity, a mosaic of layers not always visible at first glance yet which together form a unity.

Ultimately, Braided Memories became not only a visual representation of the artist’s life but an extension of it, a project woven into the fabric of the everyday, as much a part of life as a depiction of it. Through this work, the artist invites the viewer to pause and reflect on how memory, place and belonging shape our sense of self, and how what we carry with us, both consciously and unconsciously, affects the way we see the world. In encountering the images, one experiences a sense of drawing closer, not only to the subjects but also to the fragile connections between past, present and what is yet to come.

The project has been exhibited at Kunsthall Oslo, Fotografiens Hus, and Oslo Negativ.