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 with the historical. 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. Fluid and boundless, it resists linear chronologies, presenting 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 records to embrace a more 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 undulating surface mirrors the tension between remembering and forgetting, between what surfaces and what remains submerged.
The spiritual dimension of The Sea is a Blue Memory draws from Southeast Asian mythologies of sea spirits and deities, weaving these beliefs into the fabric of the work. Across the region, the sea has long been regarded as a realm of divine presence, a liminal space where unseen forces converge. This connection between the sea, memory, and spirituality underscores its role as both a witness and a participant in human history, shaping the identities of those who live along its shores.
By dissolving the boundaries between the personal and the mythic, 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, in this sense, is not merely a backdrop to human endeavors but an active force, a spectral archive that holds within it the entangled legacies of past and present.
The Sea is a Blue Memory is an animation work that explores the sea as a repository of collective memory, entangling the personal with the historical. 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. Fluid and boundless, it resists linear chronologies, presenting 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 records to embrace a more 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 undulating surface mirrors the tension between remembering and forgetting, between what surfaces and what remains submerged.
The spiritual dimension of The Sea is a Blue Memory draws from Southeast Asian mythologies of sea spirits and deities, weaving these beliefs into the fabric of the work. Across the region, the sea has long been regarded as a realm of divine presence, a liminal space where unseen forces converge. This connection between the sea, memory, and spirituality underscores its role as both a witness and a participant in human history, shaping the identities of those who live along its shores.
By dissolving the boundaries between the personal and the mythic, 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, in this sense, is not merely a backdrop to human endeavors but an active force, a spectral archive that holds within it the entangled legacies of past and present.