A State of Devolution is a conceptual photography project that explores how prolonged external destruction begins to imprint itself internally; physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Set against the backdrop of the war on Gaza, the work considers what it means to inhabit a damaged environment, and how people unconsciously adjust to survive within it. The project merges portraiture with documentary imagery captured by AFP photographer Mohammed Baba. His photographs of destruction serve not just as background, but as an active part of the emotional and spatial narrative, absorbing the human subjects and reframing their presence within the collapse. This work does not seek resolution. Instead, it documents a shift: from order to disorientation, from identity to erosion. It confronts the quiet, often invisible ways catastrophe takes hold, not only around us, but within us.

When the environment collapses, the body and mind instinctively mirror the damage. What begins as survival becomes a new state of being. Devolution here isn’t symbolic.. it’s physical, emotional, and unmistakably real.