In this series, The Lovely Nowhere, I am juxtaposing nature present in tropical climates
(banana leaves, durian fruit, pineapples, etc.) and installing them into landscapes that are
clearly American, western, and urban.
These images that I create essentially become still lifes that allude to my ethnic and post-colonial
identity where I can speak about feelings of a complicated nostalgia, absence, and otherness.
The materials that I use are things that I can easily purchase at a grocery store during anytime
of the year. This becomes a direct and tangible way in which I have access to my culture.
And it is in this way that food becomes an accessible entry point to other cultures.
These images are quiet and have a subtle political undertone to them, where I am grappling
with ideas about authenticity, the commodification and commercialization of culture in a
globalized society, the way in which we exoticize and romanticize otherness.
These installations ultimately, and very intentionally, fail to become what they set out to be.
It’s the impossibility of this pursuit that I embrace. They hover in a space neither here nor there,
which is why I call this series The Lovely Nowhere. I see them as an amalgamation and reiteration
of the inseparability of these two clashing worlds and long intertwined histories.
