ENTRY DESCRIPTION
I have been suffering from dissociative identity disorder for years. Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own ways of perceiving, relating, and thinking about oneself and the environment). At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior and each of them, when present, has absolutely no awareness of the other.

Symptom characterizing dissociative identity disorder is dissociative amnesia, which refers to the inability to remember important personal information, and / or traumatic events, not attributable by extension to a banal tendency to forget.

The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment of the social, work, or other important areas of functioning and can be detected by the individual himself or observed by other people.

The alteration is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g. blackout or chaotic behavior during alcoholic intoxication) or to a general medical condition (e.g. epilepsy).

Dissociative identity disorder is severe and chronic and can lead to disability and invalidity. It is often associated with depression and borderline personality disorder and has a high incidence of suicide attempts.

I have tried to represent my mental disorder through this self-portrait.

AUTHOR
Cristiano Volk is an Italian photographer who lives and works in a small town called Staranzano in northeastern Italy.

After a short period of study at the Spazio Labo’ in Bologna, he has worked with artists such as Massimo Mastrorillo at the D.O.O.R. Academy and Federico Clavarino.
His works have a critical view of social issues, political and cultural.
Various interests are involved in his works such as tourism in Venice as part of the project Sinking Stone, the major depressive disorder in Mélaina Cholé and the connotations of consumers and money in Laissez-faire.

Sinking Stone received the Slideluck Gazebook Jason Fulford Award in 2017. In 2018, he was selected for the FUAM Dummy Book Award and the SELF PUBLISH RIGA Dummy Contest.
In April 2019 his first book Sinking Stone was published by Witty Books and, at the end of the same year, was selected by the American Suburb X magazine among the best photographic books of 2019.
The following year his second book was Mélaina Cholé published by the American publishing house Yoffy Press coming selected by the magazines Internazionale, Photobookstore and Photobook Journal as one of the best books published in 2020.

Since 2020 he has been represented by the London agency Millennium Images.
He was awarded the FRESH EYES TALENT 2020, award sponsored by GUP Magazine.

In June 2020 he was selected among the finalists of the COMBAT prize.

His works are part of the VONTOBEL art collection in Zurich.

In 2021 his project Laissez-Faire won the Prix Levallois.

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