Photo Credit: Remi Chauvin
Floating Signifiers
My Tamil family’s local Hindu temple in Malaysia is a concrete slab with blue tarp overhead: a space with meaning born from its intention, rather than construction. The open walls and bare industrial materials do not detract from its specialness. Instead the rawness magnifies its power, defiantly proving that transcendence isn’t something just gold can conjure.
The space beneath the Tasman Bridge feels the same to me. Overlooked and unvisited by humans, it is a fantastical place where anything is possible. There is energy all around: the motorway overhead and behind, wind in the grass, moving water. Towering cement columns come out of the river and stretch to the grand ceiling above. It is my own personal cathedral where I have performed invented rituals and created my own mythologies.
The exciting thing about non-prescribed space is that you can decide its meaning and purpose. In India, there is a culture of adorning everything with anything. In Ancient Greece, columns were built not only to support buildings but because they were believed to be portals to the spiritual world. Anything can be a shrine. My cement sculptures are columns and they are portals. Vandalised with personal mythologies and adorned with discarded bike locks.