Talisman
Talisman (2024) is an on-going series of textile works made from stuff I loved so much that they were falling apart, twisted by hand into cordage, and hand-stitched into talismans.
The word talisman comes from French talisman, via Arabic ṭilasm (طِلَسْم, plural طلاسم ṭalāsim), which comes from the ancient Greek telesma (τέλεσμα), meaning "completion, religious rite, payment", ultimately from the verb teleō (τελέω), "I complete, perform a rite". A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Tattoos are also a form of talismans that have been used for millennia, and I consider mine as such.
Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed permanently in architecture. Varying in sizes, shapes and colors, I’ve made them for you to hang in your home, for good luck, healing and protection against evil.
This series of talismans for your homes is the sister-series of Amma, etymologically related to Tamil அம்மா (ammā, “mother”), Hindi अम्मा (ammā), Malayalam അമ്മ (amma), Kannada ಅಮ್ಮ (amma, “mother”) Telugu అమ్మ (amma, “mother”), Sinhalese අම්මා (ammā, “mother”), or Classical Syriac ܐܡܐ (emma, “mother”), adopted by the Copts and the Greeks as a title of honor applied to religious and to women of high rank.
Amma is a series of works installed on trees, made the same way as the Talimans. I install them in the forest, on trees, as a thank you. Trees must have been our first homes, protecting us from the elements and providing us with shelter. I have a very deep love for trees. I talk to them sometimes. Not with words maybe, but we talk. And when I gently place my hand on a tree in gratitude and conversation, I can feel how it’s alive. I don’t understand people who so easily destroys our homes, our mother, nature.
The level of destruction that we are witnessing now, was unimaginable to me just a few years ago. It feels like everything is breaking. And I hoped for so long that it didn’t have to break with so much suffering, violence and death. We knew where we were heading, because our way of living is unsustainable and built on exploitation. The trajectory was always this, and the thing that drives me crazy is how the people in charge either don’t want to see it or don’t want to change it.
I remember a few years ago I was attending a dinner after a conference, and I was talking to a European guy who was this top researcher and government advisor in Hong Kong, about the ongoing protests there in 2019, and what his take on it was. And at some point in the conversation, he said that even though he was supportive of their cause and rights to protest, he thought they were wasting their time, because it wasn’t like they could do the jobs of the government officials any better themselves.
And that’s when my polite table manners went out the window, as I laughed in his face in sheer bewilderment and expressed very clearly how that was the most absurd thing I’d ever expect from an intelligent and well educated man like him: did he seriously believe that NONE of the hundreds of thousands of protesters out on the streets could do a better job than the people in powerful positions, than him? And did he, as a researcher within the field of infrastructural innovation no less, actually believe that THIS is the best system we can come up with?
I can’t really remember what his answer was other than looking as if he wanted to leave the conversation as soon as possible.
The fundamental idea of democracy is that any citizen is considered fit to make decisions on behalf of others. But the reality of government, is that the people in power somehow believe that they are singularly skilled to be in the positions that they are in. And we all forget, it seems, that the ability to get elected into a position, is not the same as the ability to make good decisions for others.
Our chronicled world history is the history of violence. It’s the wars, the “conquering” of new positions, of new territories a.k.a colonialism, it’s the history of guns and steel and “power” and death. It’s calling murder patriotism, exploitation progress, and subjugation love. But it needn’t be this way. And so I try to imagine how we would be if our world history centered stories about art, or nature, or science, or care, because these stories are unfolding everywhere, all the time. Back in high school, I chose art and cultural history as one of my major courses, and I remember how I loved that class, but hated the ordinary history lessons with the focus on remembering dates and deaths. I didn’t know then what I know now in terms of critical thinking, and the access to information the last 25 years has changed dramatically. I grew up believing that the west was the good guys, and the US our saviors and idols. But that wasn’t true.
I try to create and make real the things that I want more of, and that I want to see. And I want more softness, and I want more freedom, and I want to hear you, and see you, as you are, your truth, your you. I want to read in the news paper about how the trees are doing on the front page, and if the birds have returned from their migration south, which is the only way I want the word migration used ever, not this insidious nu-speak version of it used to disappear the fact that people are dying in their homelands because of the capitalist exploitation of the earth and working-class people seen only as “resources”. And I don’t want to read about the happy wonders of the world to try and overlook the suffering, I want to read about it as a result of us changing this world. I want us to build a new one.
Now.
Are you coming?