Open Call: Tajh Rust

Passages is an installation of freestanding, parallel glass panels arranged to form a pathway that viewers walk through. Each panel bears stenciled forms, some treated with fluid silver to create a mirror-like finish, creating an interplay of opaque, mirrored, and transparent surfaces. An accompanying panel includes text that is appropriated from Caribbean philosopher Édouard Glissant applied in silver, which reads, “I made an attempt to communicate with this absence.” In this meditative and contemplative space of reflections and visual echoes, the text and stenciled images allude to the history of migrations across the Atlantic Ocean and the permeation of presence by absence that postcolonial bodies navigate daily as a consequence of this history. Fluid as the ocean, the play of presence and absence in the fleeting mirror reflections in this work compels the viewer to actively engage with the space, the text, and the images.