The height of pity (2022)
2’ x 2’ x 12.5’
Extruded word column, CNC routed pink insulation foam and drywall, sarees, my mother’s handwriting, paracord, dowels
In Tamil, my mother tongue which I am slowly beginning to lose, the word for Pity and the word for Sin are the same word. பாவம், Pāvam. As I slowly begin to forget Tamil, I am interested in where the learning and the loss of a language meet.
The length of sin
36” x 3” x 1”
Extruded clay from CNC routed die, my mother’s handwriting, stanchion
Drawing from the aesthetics of bureaucracy, I consider the erasure that occurs when one’s value is translated through a stack of papers. My temporary status in the United States informs my interest in the contradictions of legitimacy and legibility within America.
The precarious nature of clay on the stanchions references the unstable and fragile nature of bureaucracy. The stanchions act as punctuations in the space. Not functioning as a barrier, but as sculpture. The unnoticeable nature of them in the real world is paralleled with that of pedestals in the gallery. They are symbolic, they are invisible.
The weight of definition
48” x 79” x 4”
60 Glass blocks laser etched with letters to create a word find. Words from the glossary of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website defining the following:
Agency, Sporadic, Fear, Life, Pattern, Haven, Stateless, Willful, Bond
A selection of words from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services glossary, choosing words that have the potential for multiple meanings. This work emphasizes the distance between government-prescribed meaning and common usage. The foundational questions are: How does bureaucracy know me, even at my most vulnerable? Where do bureaucracy and intimacy meet?
The density of memory
8.5” x 11” each
Latex paint on plywood and wall, mom’s handwriting, grandma’s handwriting, wallpaper texture from childhood home
The density of memory
8.5” x 11” each
Both the home and the book are equated with relationships between language and the body. Each changes with the seasons—swelling, shrinking, breathing, aging. The body, the house, and the book are all constructed through processes of layering and stacking: muscles stretched over bone, drywall attached to studs, pages nestled into one another. I move towards following my mother’s hand and her mother’s hand by overlaying it with wallpaper textures from my childhood home. The wallpaper texture reveals instead of covering up the text, expanding on this collaged version of my memory.
The width of sin
The height of pity
The weight of definition
The weight of definition (detail)
The volume of loss
Variable
Stacked sarees tied with jute string
Sarees are tied together in the same way newspaper is recyled in India. Materials are pretending to be one another. Fabric pretends to be paper, foam insulation disguises as a structural column, plastic tries to be mortar, paintings resemble sheets of paper and clay mimics fabric—all while implicating the architecture of the space. How can materials care for one another?