“THE HIGHEST EDUCATION IS THAT WHICH DOES NOT MERELY GIVE US INFORMATION BUT MAKES OUR LIFE IN HARMONY WITH ALL EXISTENCE.” – Rabindranath Tagore, Personality (1917), Nobel Laureate in Literature (1913).
STATEMENT
Before turning to art, I studied engineering and natural sciences. Unable and limited to articulate my transgender experience, this tension opened a path toward artistic and spiritual search. Through new media, performance, ludic spaces, installation, math geometry, text/speech, songs/mantras, I explore the topic of compassion/ self compassion, and inner joy beyond matter and mind.
I have been inspired by pre-Columbian wisdom and ancestral cultures/deities that transcend the topic of gender through a spiritual lens. Notable examples include the Tida Wena (Warao) in Venezuela, indigenous peoples of the Andes, the Kinnar/Hijra in India, and the story of goddess Quan Yin. Although I do not belong to these communities, they have inspired me to reflect on my own origins and spirituality, on who we are after leaving the physical body. As an initiated Vaishnava, I am inspired by Hindu stories of deities like Radhe Krishna and Katyayani Devi, as well as saints like Sri Lalita Sakhi Dasi (Sakhi Ma) and Sage Ashtavakra whose body was bent/ deformed (Hunchback) and people laughed aloud at his appearance.
show moreThis exploration responds to exotification, humilliation and life-threatening situations I’ve faced as a transgender woman in both private and public spaces. In my experience, violence is neither male nor female, as both men and women are capable of causing harm. From my perspective, the most painful violence is when we hold internalise oppression against ourselves when we’re too scared to be who we truly are. The root of such to me is the lack of Love as Prem in Sanskrit. Love as the opposite of fear.
With compassion, my work navigates the inner tension between reductionism in science and the permissions of art. I’m not interested in dualistic and mechanistic paradigms that have historically separated humans from nature, the observer from the observed, and the self from the broader universe. Since this limits and reduces my being and my art. In contrast, quantum thinking offers a conceptual tool that, to me, resonates with the principles of qualified non-dualism, where unity and distinction coexist — Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, as taught by Ramanujacharya. Max Planck, a pioneer of quantum theory, showed that energy exists in discrete packets, or ‘quanta.’ He later stated, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness” (The Observer, 1931). His work suggested an interconnected universe.
These explorations led to the installation Post Cyborg Awakening (2017), Pineapple Laboratories a utopic safe space / memorial where transwomen are not reduced to the material body but recognised in spirit. In the work Pachamama (2021-23) I explore co-creatively the topic environmental compassion and connexion to Mother Earth. Recent works include What is in Me (2024), Call of the Universe dedicated to the Hindu Goddess Radha, and The Jewel Jellyfish Collection (2023-24), Trasnochada exploring self-compassion as bioluminescence.
Kamalanetra
August 2024 (Revised March 2025)
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