Takova

我的成长日记 (2025, mixed medium) I merged a fictional 成长日记(growth journal) and a 家庭相册(family album) for my reform assignment at LIS. This was a seed budding in me for a while, as I began to mourn the absence of continuity and documentation through my life. In whatever’s left after my parents’ divorce, I could only see a hazed alienation in the faces, the colours and the actions. Was I really happy when I was smiling? Did my dad know how distanced and alone I felt despite our proximity? These questions lead me to explore the boundary between the real and the subconscious, the circularity of our experience. I call for 2 voices in this journal, the yearning child and the enraged child, and I walk through these scattered moments together with them. We looked at my quiet withdrawal, the ethical challenge my mom’s decision imposed on my feminist believes (&the emotional betrayal). We questioned my dad’s actions with rage, whilst desperately trying to make space for the grief of watching my sister waste her years away. I can’t say that anything has been forever transformed or restored: there were many moments when the overwhelming grief made it feel impossible to finish this journal. I believe it is in this never ending act of trying to understand the paradox of love and pain, we begin to understand our humanity. To end with my favourite quote from one of my favourite manga: “Just as a place can hold anger and tenderness at the same time, contempt and attachment coexist. Even when the heart feels as though it might be torn apart by these contradictions, they never cancel each other out. This is precisely what makes the world so complex—and so compelling.”

Who do you see? What do you see? Where do you see?

‘There’s a needle deep in my body’ A long waited return, a slice of a new beginning. This one took everything from me- physically & emotionally. Pain, control, surrender are themes I kept on playing with in my head. What is the relationship between them and to ourselves? Must we brace when we walk through the fire, or can there be a soft surrender? In the ashes, I’m called to tears, to water- a long waited collapse, a bow beneath the inevitable wound, I surrender, and I return.

Sometimes I feel soft and entangled

I feel something bloomin in my heart

Open me up and I’ll do yours

I feel the penetration in me like a trail of burnt marks, Its pulling me closer

Boiling! Swelling! I’m learning to contain the these feelings

Darling, yearning

Belgrade na papiru

No words, just passing

The earth will give, 2023 Kneel on the ground, Cuts on knees.   I yield, in the wake of the field,   Purple grounds, blue rocks, edges sharp like the side of your bones.   Barren, barren, barren, a sound whispers, I hear not, for it’s only a lure from the dark.   Mommy says if you work hard the earth will give.   Till   A willow leans on your back   Till   Vacuous is your throat   Till   Mould grows between your eyelids     Daddy says if you give the world will give.   I give   Tears to those who looks but doesn’t speak   A kick in the abdomen.     I give   A velvet shape cord, words wrapped in molten water   A hush.     I give   A moulded modelled gash, oozing with steam and smell   A laceration.   Barren, barren… I cry, barren… …half asleep, I keep on, I hear… A murmur- the earth speaks!   … He leans, holding my hands and repeats, the earth will give, the earth will give.