Ongoing Narratives

"Ongoing Narratives" intertwines photography and photographic collages. I stage found materials and my body to reflect the transient world around us, creating a psychological landscape that echoes the uncertainties faced as an immigrant and Othered.

“Ongoing Narratives” is a collection of work that fluctuates between traditional photography and photographic collages. In this project, I collect discarded objects and disposable packing materials from my urban surroundings, such as bubble wrap, foam, cardboard boxes, and scrap pieces of wood. I repurpose these unwanted materials to make assemblages, staging them to create surreal still life and self-portraiture. The objects are assembled and intertwined, leaning precariously onto each other in front of the camera. I use photography to convey their ephemeral and transient place in the world into bodily and psychological landscapes.

The medium of photography provides a temporary sense of belonging between the fragility and precarity of disposable materials and the ephemeral nature of our existence - reflecting my experience of emigration. I collect used and unwanted materials spontaneously, reconstructing their context and redefining their meaning through photography as if I am trying to understand my own experience as an immigrant searching for a new land that can ultimately become my home. Through the eye of the lens, I attempt to capture those forgotten objects and reveal their visceral and phenomenological quality into sentient beings. These materials lose their original intention, function, and identity because I have created a new world for them to exist within.

The result is a combination of photographic and sculptural collages, images printed on vinyl that are then used as cut-outs, and the stacking of the images onto each other. The perceptual ambiguity oscillates between each layer. The work fluctuates between the real and the virtual, two and three dimensions, the mundane and the whimsical.

Image 1: Untitled is waiting for a title, archival inkjet print, 24.25x32.5", 2023

Image 2: Water Go Home, archival inkjet print, 24.25x32.5", 2023

Image 3: Porous skin and water, archival inkjet print,16.25x21.625", 2022

Image 4: Be Your Alien, archival inkjet print, 16.25x21.625", 2022

Image 5: Giant's tickling, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2023

Image 6: To Get There, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2022

Image 7: Chair Olympic, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2023

Image 8: Something Happened, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2022

Image 9: Untitled, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2022

Image 10: Snail, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2023

Image 11: Get in, get out, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2022

Image 12: Emerging, archival inkjet print, size variable, 2023