ENDLESS FORMS MOST BEAUTIFUL
Royal College of Art, Sackler Building, London / 25 - 30 June 2022
At night, I imagine sinking into the ocean, asking the seaweed, do you remember the primordial ooze? When our grandmothers floated together in the cradle of a new world? Remember how yours reached skywards, becoming photosynthesizers, while mine sank to the depths like microcosmic cannibals? I don’t remember, but I wish I could.
But surface creatures must develop different adaptive strategies to survive. A cuttlefish, when touched, will transform its colours. A queer person may do the same. An autistic person may study others' colours, constructing methods to adopt them. I follow these tanged echoes of the othered self in the natural world. Touching dirt, immersed in raw matter, creating my own camouflage, I am grateful to see ourselves as oddly-evolved creatures from the ooze. To be whole and natural, aligned with the universe if not with the world. The seaweed remembers, and I remember, and this is enough.
Excerpt from exhibition text.