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Art & Other Fictitious Imaginings
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Editor's Note: Cecilia André is one of the Ankhlave artists featured in the Queens Botanical Garden. Read Quail Bell's story about Ankhlave's garden project here.  "Breaking Waves" on the Crabapple tree orchard, far end, at the Queens Botanical Garden, bordering the neighborhood houses. Artist StatementI make large outdoor installations and use color transparencies to cast colored shadows. These pieces invite viewers to bathe themselves in colored lights, to experience my patterns and designs on their skin or clothing. Animals have bathed in my light pieces, too. As clouds cover the sun, the colored shadows fade then reignite as the sun comes out, bringing curiosity and awareness to the phenomena of daylight and sunshine which surrounds us daily.
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By Serrina Zhou  Look, the earth cracking like pomegranate
The scorched soot tracking the azure Cornflower blue against the infinity Of mangroves. Sixteen years and I Have not burned since. No, no. my Mother is burning inside me, around Me; her bared fault lines tracing A scar that cannot be healed. In The last shade, I am shedding The folds of overripe mango, The sweetness peeling the salt Of her wounds, the words evanescent Like fireflies trickle among The saints and shadows, their broken Wings patched with sweet syrupy Morphine. Yesterday we watched The forecast suck the inner pleats Of fish children, unborn from their Mothers, all the tears shed into Mineral and myth, bleeding and Blinding. We bloomed where We were planted but eventually Even our seeds, offered to the Gusts of diaspora will fade Into ash, the skyline unending Will snap and I will have nothing But empty miracle, the barren Basilica of entropy simmering Beneath cracked pavements And combustion, torched ablaze. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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Editor's Note: This piece previously appeared in Trouvaille Review.  Our daughter Jasmine grew troublesome that year. She complained about school, talked about boys, and cut her hair into a jagged wedge. My wife Hella said it was a phase, that it would pass, but Jasmine threw a fit when we asked her to pack for the family’s annual trip to coastal Maine.
“You’re coming, and that is that,” Hella said. Jasmine looked at me in protest, but I said nothing, and she must have thought me a monster. My little girl of fourteen no longer a little girl. Outside, a loud Trans Am circled the block. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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 My mother will be late picking me up, today. I’m sitting at the art table while the others bring their toys to the play carpet.
“Philippa. We’re done with drawing for the day,” Miss Benson calls. “My mom’s gonna be late,” I tell her. “Okay, well… that doesn’t matter,” she says. “We stay at the carpet while we wait for our parents.” I obey, but time passes. One by one, the other kids shed away like pieces of skin. The room is now raw and pulsing like an open cuticle. Miss Benson makes a phone call, and then she turns to me. “I’m going to wait here with you until your mom shows up,” she says. “You can finish your drawing, if you want.” The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
 Artist StatementMy installation artwork exists at the intersection of photography and sculpture. This hybridity of forms aligns with nostalgic and playful currents running through my practice. My work also carefully considers texture, as texture triggers powerful memories in my work. This texture is an integral trigger for self-determined identity, stemming from geographical and political situations and rooted in personal histories. Cyanotypes created using relics from my own personal history make two-dimensional records of three-dimensional objects, embedding the legacy of the object into the two-dimensional representation. My work in instant photography also takes the immediacy of the moment as a fabric for interpreting our environments.Instant photography can alleviate the feeling of longing for a finished product, the latent image revealing itself in mere seconds. Thus, my practice spans lived histories and the immediacy of the moment, capturing vivid truths latent within the everyday.
The transformative influence memory has on identity is a key theme in my work. The camera acts as a primary tool for retaining and interpreting memories. A process-oriented photographer, my work is a combination of digital, analog and alternative process photography. As an American citizen who arrived to this country as an immigrant, it is crucial for me to capture memories and to narrate lost time visually through photography. This stems from my efforts to revive discarded and forgotten objects from my family's past. These impulses influence my work as an experimental photographer: my portrayal of photography breaks free of the black frame and border and morphs into an object, inviting the viewer to interact. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in Cease, Cows in March 2020.  Harper climbs the fence, straddling the railing while he kicks off rubber snake boots, setting his toes free to wiggle and probe. He hoists himself up into the loins of the Tupelo tree looming large in front of Mamie's floating shack. His phalanges grip grey furrowed bark and he scampers up its trunk with the agility of a feral spider monkey. Gnats encircle his head clambering for morsels of sweat, pus, and blood.
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By Serrina Zou  |
