"Why Are You Running?” is a three-minute experimental narrative video exploring escapism, trauma, and identity through a fragmented journey of the self. The piece combines narrative storytelling with green screen and Adobe After Effects techniques to create a distorted visual timeline from childhood to present day.

Childhood and teenage photographs transition into increasingly stylized and disrupted imagery, reflecting experiences shaped by early sexualization, substance use, and risky behaviors. A shadowy figure represents this internal darkness as it begins to overtake the subject’s identity.

The film then shifts into present-day webcam footage, where a performative digital persona is revealed through overlaid text messages centered on sexuality, validation, and online connection. Intertitles of “Why are you running?” repeatedly interrupt the narrative, reinforcing the central theme of emotional avoidance.

The video culminates in surreal party and substance-use sequences rendered through slow motion and visual distortion, emphasizing escapism as both coping mechanism and cycle. Ultimately, the work asks the viewer to consider what they are running from, and whether that escape is conscious or inescapable.