Left Behinder
I trace the contours of continuous changes in my body that overwhelm me. Impregnated by nature’s design, it expands and contracts releasing the scarlet fluid, the sacred waters cleansing the dirt and muck, preparing for another cycle of anticipation and pain. The body and mind remain in a constant state of fluctuation, in a state of ‘being’ never really comfortably embracing each cyclic change. I weave my dress, a second skin stained scarlet registering the change in its each loop connecting from one to the other like a shroud of ‘being’, a monument to the monumentality of change and its anxieties.
Left Behinder Tapestry Series I- 12 (2018)
Printed image on cloth, appliqued cloth, stuffing, Nylon cloth, charcoal pencil and acrylic. 85” x 48” (Size of each tapestry)
We live in an age of mass migration, the magnitude of which has not been seen before. Geographical borders are made fluid, cities fall and frontiers are dismantled through which a variety of human exoduses takes place forcefully or voluntarily, looking for new homes, opportunities and dreams … in pursuit of happiness, a better life. In this, human relationships often become a casualty. Families are scattered, memories are selective and histories get erased. Negotiating connectivity, proximity and access becomes painful conversations, and self-preservation becomes primal. Love suffers.
I have taken the title ‘left behinder’ from a poem written by Sri Lankan poet, Jean Arasanayagam who comes from the Eurasian community, known locally as the Burgers. Her poem reminisces about the pains of disconnection and the lamentations of remembrance of the diaspora community. I found it to resonate with the emotional undercurrents of my work as well.