For A Better Understanding of the Series

In the series Reality and Imagination, I photograph the movement of the tide and sand at the beach as a visual metaphor to explore the interaction between the culture of the host country and the culture of the immigrant living abroad. It would have been impossible to work on and create Reality and Imagination for well over a decade without having been my mother’s caregiver for close to 15 years. It was the tremendous pressure and challenges of being her caregiver that led to my physically finding myself on the shores of Coney Island on the day when I was about to be undone mentally.

You see, I have known that the ocean can transport me to a place that’s calm and comfortable.This is a fact that I’ve learned at a very early age when I started to swim in the ocean. And luckily for me, my mother lived 5 to 8 stops on the F subway line from Coney Island.

The ocean and having being my mother’s caregiver for well over a decade has become the two main source of my creativity.

Both supported and informed each other. The ocean buffered me enough so not to crumble under the tremendous pressure of being my mother’s caregiver.
In turn, my eyes were always cast down to the ground because of the pressure I was under and that led me to a uniquely particular way of viewing the world “upside down “.

Shooting at the beach helped me to understand there is an appropriate time to lead and an appropriate time to be led.

Caring for my mother, on the other hand, has given me the freedom to take on a situation without having the extreme need of having it all figured out as before.

It has pushed me to simply do. Both have greatly influenced the making of Reality and Imagination.

The silhouette and the shadow in Reality and Imagination_Silhouette and Shadow of Life and Reality and Imagination_Silhouette and Shadow of Life Too
represent the two cultures. Both the silhouette and or the shadow depends on light to exist, just as the host culture depends on the presence of the immigrant to exist. The Coronavirus has definitely made the latter part of the previous sentence overtly apparent.

Since there are a myriad of possibilities in the surroundings of the tide, it is a matter of observing, closely evaluating, and selecting an appropriate form(s). This process of observing, and carefully evaluating, while ruminating on how to come up with a visual characteristic for each—the dominant culture and the culture that’s a guest—leads me to the selection of the silhouette and the shadow.

They were the obvious choices after my careful evaluation.

A silhouette, which is more solid, was to represent the host culture. The shadow, which is more transparent, was to represent the guest culture.

In the process of creating the images it is crucial for me to be in the moment, to be present.

Being present means that all research done and/or any thoughts about particular idea(s) are related the deep recess of the mind. It is as if all information were stored in the electronic cloud, and the pertinent bit of information automatically downloaded itself to fluidly inform the image-making process. The downloading happened so fluidly pure and fast that recognition at that particular moment is of no practical use, and so that physical function is disengaged.

It was a process of improvisation.

In his book Notes from the Woodshed, Jack Whitten, the abstract painter and sculptor, beautifully conveyed the situation when he said:

“I have stated many times before ‘spirit does not like stale air.’. This is why spon- taneity is so important. Improvisation is a conceptual programming of the mind; information is stored (very much like a battery) at the proper time when needed, energy is released without the mind intervening. It’s all in the act of making. I make therefore I am. Making is a personal manifestation of identity. Everything must be compressed into action. Everything includes: conceptual—perceptual—will—sensibility.”

It is only after I am done for the day and reviewing the images does the physical consciousness fully reengaged in that process, and the image files completely expand themselves to fully reveal their contents. As I focus on an image of interest during the review, what took place at the moment while shooting is vividly replayed in my head.

My process is a way of seeing. A way of seeing driven by a frame of mind at the service of an idea.

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Notes from the Woodshed by Jack Whitten, pg 414, edited by Katy Siegel, 2018, Hauser & Wirth Publishers