Ground Work Residency Presents, SUMMER WORKS

Laser perforated MDF, matches, 2025.

Do You Love Me explores what happens to identity when people are forced to reshape themselves in order to be accepted, protected, or treated equally. 

What does it mean to be lovable in a world that ties safety and belonging to how well you can fit in, how much human you can proof yourself to be, soften your edges, hide the parts that don’t make others comfortable and follow the rules? What happens when your existence depends on not who you are, but on how convincingly you perform desired version of yourself?

Rooted in the personal experience of being a refugee, this work resonates more broadly to the realities faced by many marginalised groups and individuals who are abandoning their identities and are pushed to a daily performance of a more loveable version of themselves to survive. 

It speaks to(of) the quiet violence of having to perform, to constantly shape-shift, in exchange for compassion or basic dignity.

Lives caught in systems that erase individuality create unsafe living conditions, brutal treatments and long periods of waiting and uncertainty where the future depends on decisions made behind closed doors. In these spaces, people often feel pressured to hide their true emotions—anger, grief, pain, fear, even pride—because only certain kind of human is seen as “deserving” of help.

Do You Love Me invites viewers to sit with discomfort and look past paperwork and policies—to witness the emotional and human cost of dehumanised systems. A view into the realities of those who are rarely allowed to be fully seen. Visit Daniela's website for more information.