Aero, single-channel video work featuring Hall and Oates' You Make My Dreams, 2018.
Plagued with fatigue and joint pain, I felt imprisoned in the stillness and concrete walls of my apartment. The only movement of air could come from a soundproofing balcony door that didn’t have a flyscreen - I kept it shut. To swat away a fly meant to use my body - to expend energy I didn’t have. To hear the outside world, traffic and birds, meant hearing the time pass - to hear people’s lives go on while I felt my world had gone still. I switched on the desk fan - it danced to life in a steady patient manner. I watched it sway and rotate slowly left and right - so much effort for such a feeble and ineffective breeze. I felt its efforts in the tiredness of my limbs.
Aero was born out of the grief I felt at losing my youth and my past self to a physical body which I felt dictated by. Is a young person with arthritis a young person at all? Aero is a sort of self-portrait of who I was before experiencing chronic illness. Tirelessly hopeful and ambitious, the character doesn’t stop dancing or smiling even under attack - keeping its steady rhythm and refusing to falter.
Exhibited at Pari Gallery, Solo (Group Exhibition), November 2022.