I’m so pleased to have a piece in the exhibition Reflections on Home, organized by GAMA, Gathering All Muslim Artists, and ARTogether, at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, from Mar 1-28, 2020. I had answered their call for submissions of art by female immigrant artists of color back in December since I checked all those boxes :)
A few years ago, my family and I visited Bangkok, Thailand. It was a city that was totally familiar in its massive, cosmopolitan & dense downtown neighborhoods, like New York; the everyday simple living of an Asian village turned major metropolis, like Karachi and Lahore; and yet with the spine-tingling flavor of a wholly unfamiliar language and way of life.
As often happens with travel, unexpected experiences change your perception, and therefore, your life. The best part for me was that it was a piece of art that did it—public art, an unexpected installation on the grounds of a famous temple. A site-specific work at Khao Mor, Wat Arun, “Across the Universe and Beyond,” by Sanitas Pradittasnee, was part of the Bangkok Art Biennale 2018, and it literally changed how I saw the world around me.
What was most interesting was how the work uses mirrors, which should reflect exactly, but don’t, because they’re in a mosaic. The mirrors reminded me of the mirrorwork used as decoration in Pakistan: embedded into walls on old buildings like the Lahore Fort, spangled across trucks, and embroidered onto clothes. This piece in Thailand led directly to the exploration of pattern that resulted in the work chosen for the Reflections on Home show.
