Imagine something that is so sublime, only looked at from the outer surface. Its emerald green ocean and the reflection of the flamboyant tropical sunlight. Does it not feel dreamy to live there forever?
However, slowly it reveals the duality of its nature. The ugly side of it; it is no longer a happy, short vacation for you. But it becomes your home, in other words, you are trapped in it. The sublime vacation moment turns into your daily life. The world becomes smaller and smaller, suffocating you with the repetitive sublime view. You get sick of the beauty. The bright sunlight feels like it is blinding you from the future. You cannot let go of the irritation and grotesque feeling of the orangey-red sunset. Is this how Edvard Munch must have felt, staring at the sunset.
This is a story about my mother. She had to accept the fate of building a nest for us in a strange world. Surrounded by unfamiliarity. She must have felt the disconnection from the language, the culture and the unwelcoming world. Without the intricate connection, she must have felt lonely. I wanted to capture that emotion in this piece. In her perception, the Island is not beautiful but like an over-saturated prison. Empty inside; Infertile from human bondage. The inner side of the sublime thing is rotten and corrupted.
*Coconut Nest* © 2023 by Tami Han
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
