Must I Stay Put?

EXHIBITION
Obviously
Curated by Andrew Varano
Lawson Flats Social Space, Perth, 2023

Must I Stay Put explores the themes of filial piety in both the Malay cultural lens and the Islamic injunctions for honoring one’s parents. Taking the legend of Tanggang from the corpus of classical Malay literature, the rock formations are an ode to the character’s unfortunate fate of being transformed into a rock after spurning his mother. The rock formations are inscribed with text and modified Jawi script (Malay language in Perso-Arabic script used in the Malay Archipelago between 1300s - 1960s) glyphs that have been a part of my decades long obsession with scripts, language and mythology. “Must I Stay Put is a rumination on the complex feelings surrounding migration and obligation to family left behind, created through a direct and tactile engagement with clay.”