The Sea is a Blue Memory, 2022
Single-channel video, (colour and sound), 10:25 min
liquid.vision_nil.land (after MalayaRubberPlantation, Getty), 2022
Bitmap white screen print on dye sublimation chromaluxe silver printing
In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022
Kerala, India
Single-channel video, (colour and sound), 10:25 min
liquid.vision_nil.land (after MalayaRubberPlantation, Getty), 2022
Bitmap white screen print on dye sublimation chromaluxe silver printing
In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022
Kerala, India
Link to Video
The Sea is a Blue Memory is an animation work that explores the sea as a repository of collective memory, entangling the personal, the historical and the mythological. More than a physical expanse, the sea emerges as a living, breathing entity, one that holds within its depths of forgotten narratives and spectral presences. Resisting linear chronologies, it presents history not as a fixed account but as an ever-shifting, multi-layered terrain where time folds into itself.
By treating the sea as a dynamic archive, the work challenges conventional notions of history, moving beyond the rigidity of land-based archives to embrace an ephemeral, embodied, and sensorial understanding of the past. The sea carries traces of migrations, trade routes, and colonial violence, just as it bears witness to acts of resistance, survival, and spiritual reverence. Its oscillating exterior reflects the tension between remembering and forgetting, between what surfaces and what remains submerged.
The spiritual dimension of the animation draws from Southeast Asian mythologies surrounding sea spirits and deities, integrating these traditional beliefs deeply into its conceptual framework. Throughout Southeast Asia, maritime realms have historically been perceived as spaces imbued with divine and supernatural presences, existing as liminal territories wherein human and non-human agencies intersect. The work envisions the sea as a vast, sentient body that absorbs, distorts, and transmits memory across generations. It suggests that history is never static but always in flux, through shifting perspectives and unresolved hauntings.
The Sea is a Blue Memory is an animation work that explores the sea as a repository of collective memory, entangling the personal, the historical and the mythological. More than a physical expanse, the sea emerges as a living, breathing entity, one that holds within its depths of forgotten narratives and spectral presences. Resisting linear chronologies, it presents history not as a fixed account but as an ever-shifting, multi-layered terrain where time folds into itself.
By treating the sea as a dynamic archive, the work challenges conventional notions of history, moving beyond the rigidity of land-based archives to embrace an ephemeral, embodied, and sensorial understanding of the past. The sea carries traces of migrations, trade routes, and colonial violence, just as it bears witness to acts of resistance, survival, and spiritual reverence. Its oscillating exterior reflects the tension between remembering and forgetting, between what surfaces and what remains submerged.
The spiritual dimension of the animation draws from Southeast Asian mythologies surrounding sea spirits and deities, integrating these traditional beliefs deeply into its conceptual framework. Throughout Southeast Asia, maritime realms have historically been perceived as spaces imbued with divine and supernatural presences, existing as liminal territories wherein human and non-human agencies intersect. The work envisions the sea as a vast, sentient body that absorbs, distorts, and transmits memory across generations. It suggests that history is never static but always in flux, through shifting perspectives and unresolved hauntings.