2021-Current
In The White Snake, a servant takes a bite of a snake (a meal meant for the king) and, in doing so, gains the ability to understand the language of animals. I used my 8 year old daughter as the model, biting into a snake, as both a direct nod to the story and as a metaphor for yearning to grasp hidden knowledge—especially in times when comprehension feels impossible.
I find it difficult reflecting on the world my children are inheriting. Doom-scrolling through news of war, violence, and children caught in conflict, I struggle to find words to explain such horrors to them. Their natural impulse is to create, to draw, to wonder—and I am haunted by the contrast between their innocence and the brutality with which so many young lives are erased in the name of power, belief, or territory.
My daughters drawings became both an interruption and a collaboration—marks of hope etched against the backdrop of my own uncertainty. Their gestures embody yearning, freedom, and imagination, reminding me of what still persists even as the world seems to burn down around us.
To hear the “language of animals” in a time of great noise and violence, and to trust that the voices and visions of children still carry the possibility of something more humane, more tender, and more just.