Here I Am

• Prize
  Silver in Analog / Film/Portrait
• Photographer
  Ainur Sakisheva
• Technical Info
  Polaroid, monochrome photographic printing method
• Photo Date
  2025

This project was born out of a life that changed its rhythm. I am the mother of an adult daughter, Aliia, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type II. The word ‘diagnosis’ always sounds cold and formal. But behind it is a living person: with their bright days, sleepless nights, sudden bursts of joy and deep descents into darkness. I look at my daughter as a person who teaches me a different way of seeing the world. “Here I am” is an attempt to see and capture not the illness, but life alongside it.