can't drown my demons, they know how to swim
Within a post-studio practice, I am unpacking my Khmer (Cambodian)-American intergenerational trauma through the scope of neomaterialism, value systems in discourse, and power objects. Displaying the breaking of cycles is the goal; establishing compassionate futures is the perpetual challenge. I am assessing my relationship with objects, symbols, and situations mutually barnacled to memories, traumas, and reams stemming from my life as a child of Cambodian refugees and Khmer Rouge genocide survivors. The shamanistic energy extracted from things elevates them into a realm of extreme sensitivity and poignancy. Pain management and healing resonates through the work. Survival mode and task-oriented laser focus stampedes over empathy and mindfulness. The unraveling is a revelation and a revolution. The allure of found objects and readymades evolves to shifting the focus of labor from production to that of consumption. The unreadymade makes more sense, for the authority of the artist's hand is overshadowed by the immortality of the commodity. Conceptualism and installation, a mode centered on relations and products, seem so perfect a vessel and vehicle.