seeks to illustrate my struggle to find an internal balance between two worlds and the eventual achievement of it.

In this short film (part of the 33 to 34 collection), I audit my life expectations during a transitional phase based on the African and Western cultures that play a significant role in my life.

In the piece, the viewer sees representations of the metaphorical shoes I have had to fill to check off societal boxes of two different cultures – that of my home country of Kenya and my current residence in Germany. Intentionally filmed in ambiguous locations in a simple format using only a camera phone, ‘Auditing My Expectations’ is a testament to the power of finding your truth and letting it guide you through life.

Instead of seeing the voice of the marginal as singular with a unified aim, Awori shows the contradictions of this expression through a play on Freud’s tripartite understanding of the human psyche.

In the tussle between the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego, the different responses to the question of How do they see us?, and thus more generally, the complexities of living with but trying to avoid definition in relation to the oppressor, come to the fore. The condition of always being looked at through someone else’s eyes – what Du Bois called a “double consciousness” – means that central to the struggle of marginalised people is the capacities to build their own modes of recognition for their identities and forms of expression.

In opening up this struggle for voice, the film remains ambivalent about the implications of recognition for marginalised people. By performing both the limits of words and their possibilities, Awori indicates the opportunities for collective experience through shared expression, despite perceived divides.