Artist Statement:
V’s work focuses on the topic of identity and its wider impact on society. The works directly engage in conversations around social stereotyping, media impact, directed narratives and the development of personal identity. The collection challenges the loss of deep-rooted customs, connection and the impact of the individual on the formation of society. Her work seeks to examine the depths of human nature and questions how to acknowledge the scars of the past in order to move forward as a species.
Denied, Digital Collage 2021
In the wake of COVID and the current state of chaos blanketing our planet, many have found themselves stranded in foreign places. Our hearts reach out to them, feel the pain of their disconnection. There is no denying empathy when we think about being ripped away from our own loved ones. The current pandemic has forced us all to see the human side of our neighbours.
However, this raises issues around immigration, borders, diaspora - who is permitted entry into a country? What quantifies a person as worthy of entry? How well you tick boxes on paperwork? Your economic value? How well you align with governmental targets and statistics? The colour of your skin? Where is the human valued in that equation?
When there is a threat to us as a species, why then can we suddenly see beyond our repulsion to the "invaders"? Why is it then that the person and their story matter?
The utopian ideal would be a world in which the imaginary lines dotted across our globe don't exist. A world we share in and celebrate each other's unique cultures with a passion. The unfortunate reality is that human beings still operate from base primal instinct. Animals fight over territory, claiming bits of the old pack to integrate into their own, defending their staked patch of dirt with physical force. Outsiders are met with swift action. How are we any different? How are we any more evolved than the animals? “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson, Marine Biologist 1952
Cultureless
Digital Collage, 2021
I sit before you bare
Heart pressed in memory of the cosmos and all that we were
Sparks touch fleshy resistance and home in form solid.
Mine, hide of origins mixed
Bound to no one man, a desolate child
denied knowledge due to other's ego war.
So I defend it all.
I fight for you....
What else would you have me do?
Blindly, with faith... I step.
Whilst you eat and pick away at my defying form.
Your faceless sister behind violent keys stroke.
My voice too wrongly educated, my lips too large, my lack of alabaster or too much thereof, does not conform to your ideals??
What gives your voice flight to tell me I am devoid of substance.
I fight for you..
What else would you have me do?
We are fading, slipping and blinking away on the infinite stream of all that is and
it wraps about me with painful strangulation and I want it to take me... and you demand I lower my voice
I fight for you..
What else would you have me do?
I see the beauty you are in darkness. The importance of the light that is human.
I see the blinding array of wonder and colour that you are
"Teach me" I plead but you rage against the offer of love
You carve fresh wounds for no other reason than the thorns that dig at your own traumas
All so delicately beautifully in your pain, on bended knee, the weight of it harnesses me to this earth
Dear beings just breathe!
For you, I fight
What else would you have me do?
Wallflower
Digital Collage 2021
We all build virtual versions of ourselves. How we would like to be, how we wish others to see us, the bravest, most highly polished versions of ourselves. And while most roll their eyes and see this as a fake vapid existence, for some people, this is a world of freedom. A point of democracy with themselves. A small liberation from crippling anxiety or the weight of invisibility.
Media tools allow the wallflower to don the armour of an avatar of immense power. They can teach us how to push beyond ourselves, find confidence, purpose and a sense of community. It's a fine balance, however, between how we project ourselves and the way others perceive us through this lens.
We make assumptions based on the imagery we see others projecting. Subconsciously, our brains raise the individual to a heightened status, or seek to rip them down. We have had thousands of years worshipping the image. Religion, advertising, the state are all acutely aware of these inherent behavioural patterns and the power of art.
When pristine images glare back at us, we then internalise these to create narratives of a person's identity. Within milliseconds of viewing an image we invent entire moral structures by which we believe that person is governed. But, more often than not, these are pure prisms of the psyche, illusions burst by reality. But humans cling to stories. We need them. Totems that provide aspirational inspiration. So what happens when faced with the reality, when our "heroes" don't meet our expectations? What happens to us AND them? Does it leave us further divided, creating adverse and unexpected separation?
We must aim to use social media as a teaching tool. Social media is the new cave painting and hieroglyphics of our day. The marks that we leave behind that will echo down generations. However, it is important to remember that not everything is as it seems. Be as genuinely authentic as you can be in how you project your own image, and don't make assumptions about the images others project. Life is never as black and white as a photograph.
Duty
Digital Collage 2021
Family, work, land, lineage. All demand duty.
Some people are bound to a life of service. There is a beautiful dignity in those who quietly shelve their own wants and desires to give their all to the people and places they love.
We tend to devalue these people and yet without them, entire lineages of history are threatened to be lost. They care for our elderly, consuming stories to pass on to young ears. They tend our lands working tirelessly, day in day out. They do the task that the rest of us abandon for silver lined dreams.
How dare we see them as lesser. These are the true kaitiaki (guardians of our world) of culture.
Ngakau Pai
Digital Collage 2021
The faithful, those who float upon their backs over the rapids of life, step fearlessly into the stream with security in their stride. They are confident no matter what the universe, their gods or goddesses or their higher selves, have in store, it will always work out for the best. They understand that life is a series of moments, opportunities to learn, to experience, to love and laugh; to connect with others along the way, to enrich their worlds as much as they enrich yours. These people have walked down some of the toughest roads, battled internal and external demons and still manage to stride with beauty and hope. Watch for these people, surround yourself with them. They will teach you to float while others drown.
Passport
Digital collage 2021
Smile
Here I am
Do I qualify
Do you see me or just the version you want to see
Smile
here I am
am I foe or hero in your eyes,
Liberator or terrorist
Smile
here I am
do I qualify
all I wish is to be seen, to be human
Samodivi
Digital Collage 2021 Old and new gods merge in a mix of culture smashed together by the implosion of history, the aftershocks never lessening. We feel so disjointed from our own humanism. Many of us exist in places we don't feel we belong, our souls crying out for old gods and lands we don't even have names for, lost long ago through diaspora's displacement.
The pull is so strong, it writhes within our blood. It demands parts of our personalities. Our DNA and the roots of our peoples, everyone indigenous and beautiful, cry for recognition and freedom. We must look to the old stories to birth new lessons. We have become ignorant and brainwashed by the arrogance of our modernism.
Ashamed of our bodies, ashamed of our history, ashamed of our actions, ashamed to admit that we are all peoples of this earth and all belonging and worthy of it. We are ashamed to celebrate each other, to find compassion and understanding. Why have we become so bitter? No more. We stand before you as warriors naked. See us all. We raise our arms high in protest together. Wave the flags of challenge, children of Gia. Your systems, your hatred to each other is serving no one. We are custodians of this planet. Stop brutalising one another. Stop. Fight for what's worth fighting for. Love, beauty, compassion, the success of your brother, not for these vapid fictional constructs of numbers and possession.
Lift your chins little Terrans, fight for your existence.
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