Path to Flora, 2021, Installation, 36 x 30 inches
"I love the fact that human genomes can be found in only about 10 percent of all the cells that occupy the mundane space I call my body; become an adult human being in company with these tiny messmates. To be one is always to become with many.”
— Donna Haraway described the community of human body in When Species Meet in 2017.
Women do not talk about the health and well-being of their bodies because the female body has always been objectified and over-sexualized. My body has developed codependency on the massive and long-term abuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics. As a result, my senses are constantly disturbed, stimulated, misguided by the external environment. Although I don't show any symptoms on the surface, there are intense internal frustrations that happen from time to time. The different flora constraints each other to form a symbiotic state. The work is influenced by my consciousness of the symbiotic collaboration of the flora within the self-referential female body. Environmental scientist Myra Hird claims that the majority of microbial interactions inside the human body do not serve any human needs. Instead, the bacterias seem to have their agency and purpose. I use acrylic ink to represent the constantly morphing, growing, changing of the flora. Similar to the behaviour of the ink, the flora is actively responding to the environment that they encounter.

