As identity politics wanes under the weight of its own rigid classifications, a pressing question emerges: how can we reconceptualize identity as not only fluid but relational and context-dependent? Drawing on Category Theory, this talk proposes a shift from essentialist understandings of identity toward a dynamic, morphism-based framework. Rather than viewing identity as fixed in a static set, we explore it as a relational structure defined through intersocial and interpersonal transformations across specific contexts. In this view, identity is not possessed but emerges through remappings. By engaging with category-theoretical concepts such as functors and natural transformations, we model identity as something that retains coherence while constantly adapting across situational topologies. This approach allows for a perspective through which identity is neither an ontological given nor an arbitrary social construct but a structured, evolving relation within multiple interacting systems.
Mohammad Salemy is an independent Berlin-based artist, critic, and curator from Canada. He holds a BFA from Emily Carr University and an MA in Critical Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia. He has shown his works in Ashkal Alwan's Home Works 7 (Beirut, 2015), Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2015), and Robot Love (Eindhoven, 2018). His writings have been published in e-flux, Flash Art, Third Rail, Brooklyn Rail, Ocula, Arts of the Working Class, and Spike. Salemy's curatorial experiment,t For Machine Use Only,y was included in the 11th edition of the Gwangju Biennale (2016). Together with a changing cast, he forms the artist collective Alphabet Collection. Salemy is the Organizer at The New Centre for Research & Practice. He has been the co-founding Organizer of The New Centre since 2014 and the editor-in-chief of its publishing arm, Triple Ampersand. He is also the editor of "For Machine Use Only: Contemplations on Algorithmic Epistemology" (&&&, 2016) and "Model is the Message: Incredible Machines Conference 2022" (&&&, 2023).
