︎︎︎ The Artifacts of No-Place
There are two masks on the mannequins in front of you. These masks are 2/8 artifacts that I created over the course of two years to explore the ideas of home, identity, and visibility. At the heart of these explorations was the question: what does it mean to be human?
I looked to answer one part of this question by grounding myself in my body. As a result, the project became specific to my experience as a racialized woman in many ways. The artifacts were consistently white (a play on my cultural identity), positioned on the head (to play with the surface of the face), and modulated light to the rhythm of the wearer's heartbeat (as a way of making the internal external). The artifacts were then used to perform in public spaces as a way of transforming and co-opting them. Through this process of making, covering, and performing, my body became my site and for a brief moment I had full authority over it, its affect, and my gaze. Each of these artifacts marks a path towards home. Home as the body. Home as a heart beat. Home as grounded to the earth. Home somewhere between subject and object, human and non-human, animal and machine.
The images that follow document the artifacts being used in performances across various public spaces. These photos were taken during the thesis project dating from 2019-2020.
Year: 2020
Medium: Installation, Sculpture, Performance, Short Film
Filming locations: Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Japan; Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Seoul, South Korea; BRIDGE Centre for Architecture + Design, Cambridge, Canada.
The artifacts, images, and work produced during this project have been exhibited as part of Presently, an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Peterborough [2020]; Prototypica_ an exhibit at the Design at Riverside Gallery [2022]; RA:X Puncta an exhibit presented during the Reel Asian International Film Festival [2022]; and as part of a window display in Galt in partnership with the Downtown Cambridge BIA and UWSA [2023]