Apple now holds a different meaning for me.

They’ve been a constant presence since childhood—always the same: red, large, juicy, crisp and almost the same name as fuji. Yet I’ve found myself captivated by their infinite possibilities, possibilities I had never before considered. In a grocery store once, I found myself surrounded by apples with different looks and from different nations. That moment sparked a curiosity within me. Since then, I’ve collected and tasted over a hundred apple varieties. But the journey didn’t stop there. Apples opened a portal into a broader exploration of memory, identity, and transformation. In many ways, I see myself in them: familiar yet unfamiliar, identical yet distinct, constantly moving forward but always circling back.

Before moving to Abu Dhabi, my work focused on media and language systems, using them as tools to create new spaces. In previous projects like End, and… and Burning Book, I explored themes of interpretation and destruction—an act of obliterating representation itself. These works, inspired by the tradition of burning offerings to send things into the afterlife, asked: What remains of the past once we’ve erased it?

As I immerse myself in this ongoing journey, I’ve come to recognize a deeper impulse within my practice: a desire to disrupt expectations. Games, for me, are a form of subversion, a playful yet critical framework for questioning the world—including the art world. I’ve designed literal board games to express these ideas. What happens when players assume different roles? How does power shift when artists, gallerists, and institutions all operate with the same power and within the same system? These explorations blur the boundaries between real life and the negative spaces where art criticism resides. Storytelling, often infused with humor, is a central component of my work—not always essential, but certainly welcome.

Currently, I find myself expanding my practice around apples even further. While I’ve long resisted being defined by any specific label, I’ve come to embrace the apple as a harmless guide in my artistic exploration. Though my path remains open-ended, I find comfort in this uncertainty, led by curiosity and the apple’s infinite symbolism.

2024.9.25