When You're Older You'll Understand, 2022
assembled construction materials, thread, plastic bag, water, glass, oil on ceramic.
Home and protection are themes I think about in my work. I was thinking about my childhood home in Guam when it was first built. It looks the same as it did when I left 23 years ago and I mimicked the roof to reflect that. The concrete debris is a literal reminder of where I used to spend my childhood: sitting on a pile of concrete blocks watching the weeds grow on the unfinished land where our new house would be built.
When I made this installation, I was thinking about my family and the traits we inherit. No one taught me how to repel a fly. Yet this is something I am fixated on, just as my grandmother seems keen on as well. Back home, bags of water are used around the house to keep flies away, usually set up by my Lola. The water is a medium distorting the flies' vision; an agent at work to make the flies confused and keep them away. Water is a tool. Despite being miles and decades apart, this innate tradition of using water as a tool, in this unique way seemed to bloom from myself even while living in the desert. Like muscle memory, I didn’t realize I was doing it until I did.
Water is also vital to survival. I remembered another trait about my mom: she doesn’t like her water being shaken. She said it’s because it reminded her of her own experience with water— having to “sip from the top” to avoid debris. I used water in found glass cups with a dash of desert dirt in them as a metaphor for being resilient. The water cups are a symbol of working with limitations and adapting to them. Being from the desert, one must find a way to survive.
images by MIKAYLA WHITMORE
