Yvette Marie Dostatni

"My American Dream" portrays an intricate landscape of perpetually shifting identities in America.

What is Cultural Identity in America? "My American Dream" attempts to untangle and explore this question with subliminal and complex visual narratives.

"My American Dream" depicts a vast American landscape of diverse communities connected and divided by languages, culture, and state lines. These complex cultural boundaries and physical identities can determine what an "American" is and aspires to be by race, class, religion, and education.

These images portray a wide range of borrowed, invented, and cultivated identities that seem ordinary in the subjects' eyes but would be viewed differently by outsiders.

I visually isolate how self-expression, personal personas, and cultural costuming can define and decide our lives and relationships, resulting in either connection or disconnection.

Compared to other nations, America is still in its infancy. We have yet to begin navigating the nuances of living in such a vast and diverse melting pot. Attempts to include can be excluded. As a nation, how do we measure inclusivity? What does "real-time" multiculturalism look like outside its Universities and ad rooms? When is the ground ever truly leveled? Collectively, these photographs indirectly examine American principles, such as patriotism or the idea of freedom for all. These images explore the contrariness and contradictions of one's identity and how one might be seen via a larger and more inclusive lens.

Ultimately, my goal is for the subjects to allow the viewer to recognize "The Self" through the diversity of "The Other."

Website www.ymdphoto.com