“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

In my experience, violence is neither male nor female, as both men and women can be violent. The root of such to me is the lack of Love. Love as Prem in Sanskrit. Love as the opposite of fear. From my perspective the most painful harm is, when we hold internalise oppression against ourselves when we’re too scared to be who we truly are.

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. This exploration responds to the ostracism, exotification, pathologisation, humiliations and life-threatening situations  I’ve faced as a transgender woman in private, institutional and public spaces.

I have been inspired by pre-Columbian wisdom and ancestral cultures/deities. 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, Maa Durga, and Lalita Tripurasundari Devi, as well as saints like Sri Lalita Sakhi Dasi (Sakhi Ma), Ramanujacharya and Sage Ashtavakra whose body was bent/ deformed (Hunchback) and people laughed aloud at his appearance.

Before fully committing to my artistic practice, I studied materials engineering and biophysical chemistry. I have come to see how scientific reductionism parallels social exclusion, flattening complexity into static categories. My work navigates the tension between reductionism in science and the oscillating permissions of art, developing audio-visuals, entangled quantum worlds that become digital and material. Building bridges within and beyond the transgender, intersex and non-binary community, breaking down barriers through shared narratives, and promoting understanding.

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 (short version, revised in 2025)