^{On Self-Care, Emotional Control, and Quiet Instability}

No Hard Feelings began as an attempt to photograph self-repair, the quiet resilience found in routine, care, and controlled everyday gestures. Yet as the images accumulated, they revealed something else. The repeated acts of self-care, order, and composure began to feel mechanical rather than restorative. Calm surfaces concealed a persistent unease. What initially appeared as healing slowly exposed itself as a system of emotional management — one that allows life to remain functional while leaving deeper wounds untouched.

Rather than focusing on personal trauma, the project observes a shared behavioral pattern: how contemporary life encourages vulnerability to be regulated, softened, or postponed through discipline and refinement. The figures remain composed, the spaces orderly, yet a sense of unnamed weight lingers — subtle, unresolved, and quietly present.

No Hard Feelings does not oppose self-care, nor does it dramatize collapse. It lingers in the space in between, where comfort and control coexist, and where what is not felt continues to shape the atmosphere of everyday life.