To Be An Apple: A Portal, Prelude, Longing Emerged, 2024
6.6x5.4 cm Polaroid photos, Digital prints, Video installation
In the summer of 2024, I traveled to Almaty, Kazakhstan—the birthplace of apples—performing a ritualistic journey to trace the origins of life, later, I returned once more, and later, I can't stop but keep returning.
Traded across markets, embedded in myths, preserved in memory, it travels through time and cultures while remaining unmistakably itself. To be an apple is to be carried, consumed, and transformed—unbound, yet always searching for roots.
Tracing the apple’s origin is a search for my own beginnings. My hands grazed leaves, my feet sank into soil. I let the quiet rhythms of the harvest press into me. I carry the weight of apples, their stories, their fleetingness. I taste the floral notes within their sharpness. I store them in freezing air, suspending time itself.
In this work, I compose a visual echo through Polaroids, images that hold warmth and distance, intimacy and impermanence. Together, they form a fragmented poem of transformation, identity, and belonging. Through them, I trace my body’s movement across time and space, inviting others to witness and celebrate the cycle.
