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In Save Me Hanuman!, I call upon Hanuman to exact my revenge on the little creatures which wriggle, bite, and sting. Using images cut from an illustrated children's book of Hindu stories and a book on local insects, I have found both hero and antagonists to play out the battle between insect and god. This reimagined adventure invokes Hanuman for his courage, the courage I do not have in the face of the insects of Trinidad. In the works The Unreborn and Terror Cascade, I explore my fear and revulsion of caterpillars from larva to pupa. The Unreborn is an installation of 60 paper cocoons hanging from pins. Terror Cascade depicts a portal of enlarged caterpillar heads dripping with caterpillars falling headfirst and disappearing into another portal. The works Take That! and It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Hanuman! portray Hanuman in the air and mid-strike attacking the caterpillar monsters. In another piece, I present a full page from the Ramayana titled There's Something on Your Face! Let Me Get That For You! and in this image I suggest that Hanuman is aggressively removing an insect from another Hanuman's face with his scepter.
Paper, pins, 2016
Installation view
Terror Cascade and The Unreborn
There's Something on Your Face, Let me Get That For You!
Take That!
It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Hanuman!
Floor installation
Take That!
(the monster)
It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Hanuman!
Terror Cascade
The Unreborn
Floor installation
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Alice Yard is the backyard space of the house at 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.
This was once the house of Sean Leonard's great-grandmother. Four generations of children played and imagined in this yard, and now we continue this tradition. Alice Yard is a space for creative experiment, collaboration, and improvisation.
Alice Yard is administered and curated by architect Sean Leonard, artist Christopher Cozier, and writer and editor Nicholas Laughlin, with the help of a growing network of creative collaborators. Read more about us here. Alice Yard is a non-profit organisation incorporated under the laws of Trinidad and Tobago.
http://aliceyard.blogspot.com/
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Special thanks to:
Christopher Cozier, Sean Leonard and Nicholas Laughlin of Alice Yard
Ashraph of the Frame Shop
Living World, The Journal of The Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists' Club, Trinidad 2015
Ramayana: The Epic Journey, Sterling Publishers Private Unlimited, New Delhi, India 2010
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