“Public space is the age’s master signifier, a loose and elastic notion…..Simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. It is political air.”

– Canadian Philosopher Mark Kingwell

Artist Statement

I am an artist-researcher and an artist-practitioner in public spaces working at the intersection of performance, human geography and urban spatial theory. I sense the poetics and politics of public spaces and move them with my body as much as they sense and move me with theirs – an entangled, dynamic and ever evolving web of spatial, social and political entities. And what emerges from this reciprocal relationship is the inspiration for my artistic practice in performance and choreography.

My performative interventions in public spaces are invitations for the personal, social and political within us to leave the confinement of our private, inner sphere and join the limitless possibilities of the public realm in order to emerge transformed. Within moments, the performance shifts one’s role from observer to participant, from an individual presence to part of a collective public formation. In this process, familiar perspectives are unsettled and reimagined through unexpected encounters: with the surrounding environment, with fellow human beings, and ultimately with the world itself.

Within the current neoliberal, capitalistic economy in art, I, as an artist of colour, may not be heard in places that are designated as places of ‘high art’. But that force of discrimination is far from stopping me from creating. As an artist it is inherent in me to create, disrupt and imagine new horizons. Public spaces are my new horizons where I view my performances as a critical public practice. They are the only places left where, still today, the forces of innumerable interactions and exchanges between people of similar and different backgrounds and beliefs bring new meanings and possibilities. Our public values are still valued here and our public dreams are still dreamt here. And hence, I perform public spaces.