The Milkweed, Latent. The Home, Returned. (II) Performed in Camarillo, CA, at Studio Channel Islands Art Center. (Part of Trans/formed exhibition) 4 ceremonies were held on the night of April 4th, 2025.
Materials: Naturally dyed muslin (onion, marigold, and avocado). Soil, shells, loquat leaves, oranges, sand, water, candles, buttons, thread, bowls made by my grandfather, and water-soluble fabric.
This intimate installation and guided ceremony was created in response to the destruction of my family home on November 6th, 2024, in the Mountain Fire. Participants were invited to reflect on loss as a transitional moment in a geologic continuum, and upon the sanctity of fire as a powerful catalyst for reconnecting with the land. The installation and ceremony initiate a conversation around climate grief, to deepen our connection with the Earth and process the changes that are occurring within it. While acknowledging the devastation that fire has caused, this piece explores the sanctity of fire and challenges our separation from it.
As a symbol of our entanglements with one another and the earth, this work uses materials gathered from the land and sea, candles, natural dyes, and a hand-sewn, naturally dyed tapestry of mycelial network, which is aligned with the four cardinal directions. The colors and patterns reference cyclical cycles, such as those of the four seasons.
Ceremonies mark changes in our lives, beginnings and endings, and events we are trying to understand that are bigger than us. This ceremony is a way of calling out and connecting to impermanence and the transitional moment in the context of what we experienced with the Mountain Fire. A central part of the ceremony is the dissolution of a piece of water soluble fabric that was hand sewn and imbued with milkweed seeds, inspired by fire and symbolizing the cycles of life, the seeds and 7 rings of stitching represent 7 generations– which represent a concept rooted in Indigenous cultures, particularly the Haudenosaunee: to live one’s life with the consideration of the 7 generations ahead of oneself. It reminds us of our current responsibilities to our future descendants and Earth.
Each participant was given their own circle of water soluble fabric, stitched with one red ring. They were invited to write something they had lost or are afraid to lose. Collectively, we dissolved our fabrics together, and combined the remnants of water, thread, and seeds in one large bowl.
The ceremony concluded with an open discussion, an opportunity to grieve together. Tears were shed, memories were exchanged, and the event included 4 ceremonies the last of which was held with family and close friends.
The Milkweed, Latent. The Home, Returned. (I) Performed in Chicago, IL at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Final for Savneet Talwar’s “Social Fabrics” Fibers class. The first iteration of what would become the ceremony was held at Studio Channel Islands. 2024.
Materials: muslin, candles, free-motion sewing, water, milkweed seeds, oranges, pomegranates, leaves, aloe, rope, soil, flowers, and salt.
This installation and ceremony were a response to the experience of witnessing and grieving the loss of my family’s home due to the Mountain Fire on November 6th, 2024. I was living in Chicago as this event unfolded, the day after the 2024 Presidential Election.
The ceremony invites participants to reflect on how climate change has affected their lives, both individually and collectively. As we share these moments, we consider how we can learn, love, and honor the land by practicing reciprocity, reflection, and care. While acknowledging the devastation that fire has caused, this piece explores the sanctity of fire and challenges our separation from it, as it is our estrangement from fire and the erasure of Indigenous practices of cultural burning that has led us to such vast destruction.
Gently hanging from the ceiling and mounted on walls are textiles with various plants sewn into them. Imbuing plants into textiles reflects my experience of climate grief; an attempt to preserve the natural world while acknowledging the inevitability of its decay. Draped across the ceiling, gauzy fabric and a garland of aloe hung above the heads of the participants. A poem, sewn into a large, circular fabric, lay below. Rings of eucalyptus, soil, shells, rotting lemons, oranges, pomegranates, milkweed pods, and candles surrounded it.
To begin the ritual, each participant was prompted to think about something they loved that they lost as they placed a pinch of salt into a large bowl. The salt served as a container for these tender memories and cleansed the water used for the performance. Dissolvable fabric embroidered with hundreds of stitches in red, orange, and yellow thread surrounding a ring of milkweed seeds was passed around the circle. Symbolic of life cycles, inspired by fire, and reminiscent of the warmth of my family’s home, the threads were arranged in water-soluble fabric along with the seeds.
As I knelt in the center of the circle and poured water over the fabric, the threads were released as the fabric dissolved. Without the structure of the fabric, the threads and seeds became a heap at the bottom of the bowl; an homage to the persistence of life even in the face of environmental destruction. The thread holds the memory of the fabric, and the milkweed seeds wait to find their way back to the soil.
An opposite action, a destruction, a return.
The water, contaminated. The threads, matted. The fabric, disintegrated. The seeds, latent.
A ritual of irreversible processes. An act of acceptance, an effort to rebuild a relationship with the earth and the processes that destroy it. How can we accept our reality if we can’t coexist with the processes that change it? How can we grieve what we’ve lost, and harness our love for healing and change?