HOW DOES THE OCEAN DREAM?
This project explores my relationship to the water, a recurring theme in my work, through an immersive two-channel video installation. The work is experienced as a meditative, sacred space, inviting the audience into an alternate world.
Through the project, I press deeper into my questions of sacred and divine connections to the land and cosmos, and imagine the Ocean as a nonhuman yet equally emotive entity whose voice I seek to understand. A poetic narrative and experimental video is projected on the left screen, with audio recording of my voice reverberating throughout the room. The screen on the right displays an animation of waves crashing over one another, reinforcing themes of resistance to borders, boundaries, and categorization present in the narrative.
Through the project, I press deeper into my questions of sacred and divine connections to the land and cosmos, and imagine the Ocean as a nonhuman yet equally emotive entity whose voice I seek to understand. A poetic narrative and experimental video is projected on the left screen, with audio recording of my voice reverberating throughout the room. The screen on the right displays an animation of waves crashing over one another, reinforcing themes of resistance to borders, boundaries, and categorization present in the narrative.
A shimmery textile forms a space-ship viewport-like corner from one side of the room to the other. The audience is invited inside; the first ones to enter sit at the prow where the waves and the sounds of the two channels converge, and the rest fill every corner of the room.
How does the Ocean Dream? presents the beginning iteration for my desire to create blueprints for future worlds through questions about the divine connection to land and space, earth and sea and stars, and create an alternate space for this connection and communion. Tapping into my Bengali heritage, Islamic faith, childhood experience growing up in Houston, and the fundamental role of water—both dark and destructive yet sacred and centering—in my philosophy of existence, the project presents the beginning of a far greater journey to come.
How does the Ocean Dream? presents the beginning iteration for my desire to create blueprints for future worlds through questions about the divine connection to land and space, earth and sea and stars, and create an alternate space for this connection and communion. Tapping into my Bengali heritage, Islamic faith, childhood experience growing up in Houston, and the fundamental role of water—both dark and destructive yet sacred and centering—in my philosophy of existence, the project presents the beginning of a far greater journey to come.
In building the installation of this project, I sought to invite a larger
audience into my interior landscape, yet found myself still limited by
the walls of this room and the two-dimensionality of the projections.
So I took the project into the high desert outside Marfa, Texas and projected it on a sparse 15-foot tall cliffside under cover of night.
So I took the project into the high desert outside Marfa, Texas and projected it on a sparse 15-foot tall cliffside under cover of night.
There was something surreal to the process, to seeing a digital ocean
spilling across a landscape that represents the absence of water,
and a location where an ocean once was.
A presence—maybe a few—watched us as we projected and filmed, hazy light from a passing car piercing the dark every now and then, the only sound that of the wildlife, wind, and my own voice ringing across the land.
A presence—maybe a few—watched us as we projected and filmed, hazy light from a passing car piercing the dark every now and then, the only sound that of the wildlife, wind, and my own voice ringing across the land.