“It Only Takes One Time...”
“Birds feel something akin to pain and fear just before migration, and nothing alleviates this feeling except flight (the rapid motion of wings).”
Installation
Borosilicate Glass
I started working on this piece right before deciding to leave the US. I thought about the time in my childhood when the violent crime in my Philadelphia neighborhood became drastic enough that my mother started weighing if we needed to install burglar bars on our windows.
Most of my childhood memories are hazy, leaving me with sensations that are more like fingerprint smudges than a linear narrative. What stayed with me from that time was the uncertainty in the air, not knowing if or when leaving would ever be possible.
During the process of planning the move, a million questions came up about where to go, when to go, and whether or not we were making the “right decision”. Reflecting on the way circumstances beyond our control shape our decisions, trying to decipher if we were acting out of fear, instinct, hope, or something different entirely. I still don’t know the answer.
