By Chi Tran
A response to: unfixed: σκιά σκιά σκιά ombra ombra ombra shadow shadow shadow, Sutton Gallery, 2021
1.
The magical girl has learned how to transport light from one place to another.
Her skill is in collecting it without damaging any of its strength or capabilities.
She places these cells of light into her bag, to place on the table at home.
She arranges them in a calculated sequence, which allows them to take dimension and become a
solid form.
Light is like a biography of survival, in that whatever object it passes through, its effects remain
lawful and true.
She uses the method of rearranging light to help her understand time as nonlinear.
She calls her doctor who tells her, sometimes we do not recognise change for what it is. It
happens and we merely observe the Earth moving, plates shifting, it’s tectonic.
2.
My father lives in another world called Paradise. It is a place where he cooks, thinks about his
grandmother, and travels through time.
One day, he tells me, Heaven is not a place you go to but a status that you can achieve here and now.
I understand what he is trying to tell me but I don’t quite know how to achieve it.
We live in two separate worlds, which means our structures are very different.
We may both contain genetic sequences, but mine hold many more of his memories than his do of mine.
He tells me that only after I achieve the status of Heaven will he gift me another memory.
I ask him, why not before?
He says, I’m afraid if I give it to you beforehand, you will deliver it to the angels.
3.
When I look up at the sky, I assign a meaning to it.
The state of the sky may not be a physical surface but rather everything that lies above it. Its
character is wide and unending; my memory coils in comparison.
Every physical entity becomes a frontier for understanding another person, which is to say, I
change with every thought.
The science of change carries a different process when it comes to matters of the heart.
According to poet Bhanu Kapil, the only way to wash a heart is to remove it.
I take this to mean that if you want to cleanse a heart, you may have to take away its function and
leave the heart and its carrier without the possibility to change.
By Chi Tran
A response to: unfixed: σκιά σκιά σκιά ombra ombra ombra shadow shadow shadow, Sutton Gallery, 2021
1.
The magical girl has learned how to transport light from one place to another.
Her skill is in collecting it without damaging any of its strength or capabilities.
She places these cells of light into her bag, to place on the table at home.
She arranges them in a calculated sequence, which allows them to take dimension and become a
solid form.
Light is like a biography of survival, in that whatever object it passes through, its effects remain
lawful and true.
She uses the method of rearranging light to help her understand time as nonlinear.
She calls her doctor who tells her, sometimes we do not recognise change for what it is. It
happens and we merely observe the Earth moving, plates shifting, it’s tectonic.
2.
My father lives in another world called Paradise. It is a place where he cooks, thinks about his
grandmother, and travels through time.
One day, he tells me, Heaven is not a place you go to but a status that you can achieve here and now.
I understand what he is trying to tell me but I don’t quite know how to achieve it.
We live in two separate worlds, which means our structures are very different.
We may both contain genetic sequences, but mine hold many more of his memories than his do of mine.
He tells me that only after I achieve the status of Heaven will he gift me another memory.
I ask him, why not before?
He says, I’m afraid if I give it to you beforehand, you will deliver it to the angels.
3.
When I look up at the sky, I assign a meaning to it.
The state of the sky may not be a physical surface but rather everything that lies above it. Its
character is wide and unending; my memory coils in comparison.
Every physical entity becomes a frontier for understanding another person, which is to say, I
change with every thought.
The science of change carries a different process when it comes to matters of the heart.
According to poet Bhanu Kapil, the only way to wash a heart is to remove it.
I take this to mean that if you want to cleanse a heart, you may have to take away its function and
leave the heart and its carrier without the possibility to change.