ARTWORKS

New nomads negotiating canon

Inspired from the wooden beams of a childhood attic, this deconstructed carcass seeks to explore the remnants of childhood and questions the relationship between youth and belonging through space.

Def. of home. /noun/ A feeling of belonging to a wider picture. A sense of being protected. A prolonged history. A place that accompanies you permanently.

‘Patakara’ is the Telugu word for a kitchen utensil used on the Indian subcontinent to grip handle-less steel vessels by their rims. Learning to use one to artificially grip and carry burning hot vessels of food feels very much like a skill passed on from mother to daughter, like an informal rite of passage. In weighing my life and my home to fly here, the stainless steel vessels didn’t make the ‘23 kg x 2 pcs’ cut, but the patakara fortuitously got left in. Its only purpose in London is to be here, showing you something puzzling and exotic from far away, and to remind me of what home looks and feels like.

@plobbi_with_an_i

I hear cooker whistles play catch with the wind chime. I hear crows, kites and mynahs sunbathing on rooftops, sucking on a slice of overripe watermelon. I hear a young couple quarrel, followed abruptly by 7 minutes of eerie silence, clouded only by the moans of pigeons. I hear the uncle from the 16th floor blow the conch every evening at 6:26, as his wife draws circles with a ball of fire. I hear my bathroom neighbour shower to Bastille (and kajra re), my bedroom neighbour paint to Bon Iver, and the mustard seeds bop to Beyonce in my living-room neighbour's kitchen.

Janani Venkateswaran

I watch my shadows become shorter, and longer, as dawns merge with dusks, merge into days, weeks, and months. I am home. Time is dancing.

Take a step closer and take a couple steps back. Come in closer and look a little deeper...

What do you taste? Explosions of pop rocks? Can you feel them fizzling in your mouth? Can you hear the echoes of confetti strings whisper away its dying breath? There is hardened icing on the cake and day-old jelly beans left on the dining table.

There are too many details to share, too much pain and chaos, and too much love. Look a little closer... and maybe you’ll feel it too.

‘you were my daydream, my honey-soaked tears’

2023 Acrylic, Chalk, and Ink on Canvas

102 x 152 cm

Right

‘the easter eggs I never found’ 2022 Acrylic, Chalk, and Ink on Canvas

61 cm. Round

Right

‘another bowl of lucky charms’

2022 Acrylic, Chalk, and Ink on Canvas

61 cm. Round

Right ‘buttered pears and a sugar-filled fever dream’

2023 Acrylic, Chalk, and Ink on Canvas 61 cm. Round

This painting is a moment in time in my life, it depicts tragedy, helplessness, consolement and the feeling of being stuck and alone. This moment depicts the moment of chaos whilst my grandmother held my hands. I’m almost obsessed with the way she held me, letting me know its going to be okay when her eyes told me otherwise. I recreated this piece with the details I remember of that day. This moment is when life changing events began. The moment I opened my hands.

Envelopes created out of canvas, immersed in wax to relay ideas of communication and language among different communities.

@zehra_marikar

I often have a feeling of being in a world apart in daily life, which makes me interested in the concept of liminal space, which is like a transition between two spaces, and the common exit direction sign in architecture is like a sign of liminal space, combined with my own experience, I want to transform my inner being into a space with exit signs everywhere, many directions are even contradictory to each other and includes my graffiti and paintings, which intertwine and prolong, forming a kind of folding of space, becoming a projection of a confused consciousness due to the lack of belonging.

@zys0577

Home has always been a feeling, I geographically come from India a place chest deep in rich culture and heritage, which I take pride in. However I am still figuring out where my home is or what gives me the sense of belonging in a place. When I sat down to make my self portrait there were many things that ran through my mind but I wanted to showcase my personality and my identity. This made me think about the fact that I am 18 years old and I am still becoming a person and developing a personality. I still have so many paths to cross and roads to come across that will shape me. There are many pieces about my personality that still have to fit in. My jigsaw puzzle is incomplete...

Caicai is my dog, but I see her more as a family. She has been always there for me since 2019, one of the huge turning points in my life. She brings me company, joy, fun and care. She’s always the first one to sense it when I am not so happy. Our love is simple but deep, there’s no materialistic relationship between us. It’s simply that I love her, she loves me, and we have fun together. This is her fur that fell out after being brushed in 2021, when I was graduating high school, submitting a portfolio, and losing my loved ones. This pack of fur has carried so much, and it reminds me of happy moments with Caicai just seeing it being here. This pack gives me a sense of belonging.

Dan Rong

Focusing on the ideas of home, identity and belonging, this set of work will discuss the attachment between us and the earth, the connections we embrace with our journey with the land. Using the materials gathered at my homeland,this work begins to explore the link I have with London, where I live, and Hertfordshire, my birthplace.

@jasminehohbeinart https://jasminehohbein.wixsite.com/website

Kai Yan’s paintings are made of tarnish taken directly from the polishing of her family’s silver jewellery. The tarnish that has formed through time is imprinted onto the cloth as she delicately cared for them. The transference of the tarnish onto the cloth has surfaced new imageries, formed naturally and coincidently.

‘Passing Train’

2022

Silver Tarnish, Cloth

14 x 14 x 0.5 cm

Right II

‘Burned Morpho’

2022

Silver Tarnish, Cloth

14 x 14 x 0.5 cm

Right III

‘Jumping into the Ocean’

2022

Silver Tarnish, Cloth

14 x 14 x 0.5 cm

Right IV

‘Reeds on the pond’

2022

Silver Tarnish, Cloth

14 x 14 x 0.5 cm @jeskaiyan

Visiting My Parents in Summer

It seems they have always been here these crows outside the window, whom I cannot see, but hear. It seems they have been making their noise for such a long time I cannot remember what it was like before. Perhaps it was summer and there were leaves on the ground from trees silently dying. Perhaps it is still summer and all you are doing is listening to your life pass by in a single afternoon. Here is your childhood room. Here are the distances between sleeps. And here are the crows outside your window singing their harsh songs, glistening.

or ‘alankaram’, is the act of ornamentation. A series of photographs of what a woman borrows, owns, and inherits. Everyday she wears her mother’s saree and her friend’s jewellery; everyday she wears her grandmother’s laugh and her aunt’s gait. She is a sum of the women in her life; physically manifested through accessories, metaphysically through her very being.

அலங்காரம்

@jananivenkat_

Place is defined by interactions and social ties, rather than physical boundary.

Displacement of lace curtain modelled on one at my grandparents

@Suzanneelven

If you want my apartment, sleep in it but let’s have a clear understanding: the books are still free agents.

If the rocking chair’s arms surround you they can also let you go, they can shape the air like a body.

I don’t want your rent, I want a radiance of attention like the candle’s flame when we eat, I mean a kind of awe attending the spaces between us--Not a roof but a field of stars.

Two figures sit facing away from each other in a symmetric composition, this painting is an exploration of togetherness and comfort between two individuals set in a surreal domestic setting, 2022.

@lmaxnies https://lauranies.art/

Two railing poles that are characteristic to UK Terraced homes manipulated into arrows. Their geographical positions point towards East and West. The warped railings subvert their original function and symbolic value.

@miyakmawatari

And your body is the only place my arms spread, treat your body like a temple, go there constantly.

@aariyashah @feelslikeghar