Matryoshka (2021)

Matryoshka explores the role of fact and fiction in place making and historical narratives. This collage of performance, poetry and song represents the author’s attempt to address the loss of memory inherent to immigration. In attempt to connect to a familial narrative while lacking many of its components, this piece shows how abstraction and the “real”, rather than being opposing incongruous forces, are often inextricably bound together.

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Synth organs and a dated prom dress seem pulled from a rose-colored 80’s fantasy, yet the figure is rooted in their present day environment: against the cars of the BQE, they wrap themselves around the branch of a tree, dig in the dirt of Owl’s Head Park. There are elements of absurdity that seem anachronistic and out of place-- the subject finds a kitchen knife and soil-free beets, grown in a tree's sacred enclaves. They cut the beet and press beet juice into their cheeks and nose, evoking rituals from a life that is perhaps closer to the earth, and far from the urban landscape which frames the scene. Wearing grandmothers jewels and a poorly tied kerchief, the subject engages with the real and the stereotyped alike.

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By capturing an exaggerated fiction inspired by the author's heritage, this piece honors what is lost and creates growth in the gaps between. A new story is born within the void of uncertainty, and presents a unique way of understanding this intergenerational space through the interactions of the subject’s body with the environment that surrounds them.