Door handle, stove knobs, water taps. Character's mind runs a second version of reality where something has been left on, left open, left running. So they go back and look at the tap until they are certain it is closed, put a hand on the door to feel it is locked, turn each knob and check it again.

This character is me in 2022, when the war amplified something long hidden.
Forgetting the tap once and flooding the kitchen was enough for my mind to appoint itself protector against dangers that never came.

To capture the unreal reality of OCD I went back into that self, performing the scenarios I had spent years making sure would never happen. This put me back inside the obsessive thoughts and rituals, where I noticed their resemblance to photography.

I shot on a manual lens which required me to repeat the same pose, same action, same "ritual" until the frame came into focus and the shot felt right. Though this time, the repetitions left a thousand frames behind.

Then the same focus turns from taps and knobs onto the body, where the danger is found in oversized papier-mâché moles and the safety in tearing them apart, out of sight.

The mind starts to attend to the scenarios more than the rest of life. From outside the checks look like a quirk, something to joke about and easy to brush off. But the cycle only grows larger until harmless rituals consume enough time to last a whole life.

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