North Macedonia (Republic of)

The concept of Inter spem et metum, developed by Slavica Janešlieva through her conceptual-visual panopticon, urges us to face the notion of otherness/distinctiveness, the feeling of being a stranger, the one present everywhere: in me, in you, in them, in us. She challenges us with acceptance or non-acceptance of labels distinct from the ones familiar and ordinary to the masses; encompassing differences based on gender, sexual orientation, appearance, demeanour, attitude, illness, nationality, religion, language, political orientation...
How often have we felt like “others”, “strangers”, outcasts from a certain environment? Justified or not, we have stigmatised ourselves, imposed self-censorship and self-criticism, feeling inadequate of the expectations of the other from us, but of our own towards ourselves too!
Being different carries the potential for transformation. Just as in natural selection, mutation increases the likelihood of a failure as much as the emergence of a new variant, much superior to its predecessor.
It is up to each of us to find the swan within.