Sometimes I would like to travel back in time and punch myself in the face. There is no closer, more complicated,and more enduring connection than the one we have with ourselves. We are stuck with our own presence—whether we like it or not.

For me, happiness is often tangled with regret. I regularly question the choices I‘ve made, and in doing so, I find myself resisting who I’ve become. In therapy, I was encouraged to be kind to myself, to reconnect with my „inner child.“

That relationship—the one with myself—is foundational. If it’s weak, happiness is not easy to reach.

This is where photography enters: a way of seeing with fresh, unfiltered eyes. A tool that not only frames what I observe but allows me to approach myself, and the past, with
curiosity instead of criticism.

Photography, I would argue, is the most accessible form of time travel we have. We freeze a moment and call it “forever”— but of course, that’s an illusion. The photo persists, while the emotion fades. The memory changes.What remains is a visual echo of a feeling that may never return.

How real is happiness in a world that demands we display it? Is it something we live, or something we perform?

My work explores this contradiction from a personal angle— how self-image, memory, and internal expectations collide with cultural scripts of what joy should look like.

I’d like to propose a thought experiment:
what if I could reconnect with my past self—literally? According to theoretical physics, time travel may be possible via a wormhole. I don’t claim to understand the math.

This is not a scientific model, but a visual one. A mind game, or perhaps, a soft sci-fi metaphor for healing. By imagining time travel as a way to revisit and visually reframe the past,I try to access a deeper layer of self-compassion—possibly even joy. But not the kind of joy marketed on Instagram.

A quieter, more unstable kind. An imperfect kind. One that makes room for pain,contradiction, and absurdity.

Some may see this as escapism. That might be true. But if stepping outside myself—if imagining Earth from space—helps me put my sadness in perspective, then it’s worth the trip.

In this project, I use photography not to capture happiness as it’s expected to look, but to explore its absences, distortions,
and the fictions we build around it. It’s a visual diary of someone trying to time-travel toward peace, one image at a time.