Symmetrical Relations
ROLE: Illustrator, Animator, Installer
Symmetrical Relations was an exploration of sorority made during my final year of undergraduate studies. This seven-part animated installation represents the tensions between symbiosis and rivalry, activity and passivity, imagination and reality, and sister and sister.
The aim of this work is to examine sisterhood through the lens of the imaginary to reveal exactly how much the sister figure can be an amalgamation of one’s own memories, insecurities, hopes, and despairs projected on a sibling. The use of natural metaphors and artificial media attempts to complicate the traditionally feminine association with growth, fertility, and nature.
The sister bond, despite the popular conception that it is biologically damning, can often be worn out with time until it becomes a fictional amalgamation of unreliable memories and romanticized childhoods. The biological relationship between two sisters thus becomes less important than the constructed relationship that emerges through their interactions. Symmetrical Relations is a testament to an imaginary bond with a real sister. This work, consisting of a series of animated portraits, explores the tension between imagination and reality by suspending two symmetrical sister figures in a surreal, dreamlike world of distorted time. The two figures are constantly in conversation with each other although they say nothing – their conversation is informed by their symmetrical relationship to each other, to their environment, and to the viewer. Ultimately, Symmetrical Relations reconstructs an ambivalent, idyllic, and entirely subjective sororal bond.
