Hi, Kefalonia

This research-based experimental project began with my encounter with lichens during my residency at Banff. At that time, I saw lichens as a reflection of myself: unseen, tiny, marginal, yet quietly possessing the power to take over the world, slowly and persistently.
However, as I moved deeper into research, I began to realize how human-centred my thinking was. I had projected too much of my own experience, emotion, and desire onto lichens. When I arrived for the residency in Kefalonia, Greece, I carried a strong intention not to simply bring my own experience with me, but to try to understand, feel, and stay with otherness.
During my time in Greece, the relationship between human and non-human, centre and de-centre, moved back and forth in my mind. Sometimes I felt that without otherness, there is no “me.” And without “me,” there is both everything and nothing. As a human being, I carry many desires, fears, memories, and thoughts. I also began to ask myself: if I focus on the non-human, is this not also another form of human desire?
Rather than resolving this conflict, I decided to accept the complexity of my thinking. I began to stay with my own feelings, the lichens, the weather, and the surroundings. I used rice paper and ink, including ink made from squid, to rub and trace lichens growing on tree bark, walls, rocks, and the ground. The use of squid ink also brought another discomfort: the feeling that I had killed another less-valued life form in order to make “art.”
Through rubbing and tracing, I tried to record the presence of lichens. Yet I could never fully capture their details. They are attached to walls, tree bark, rocks, and the ground. They are colourful—pink, orange, grey, black, green, blue—but in my work, they appear only as black marks, dots, and traces. I can never truly represent them to you unless you encounter them in person.
What this residency cohort brought to me is the idea that art is not only about making objects, but about opening conversations. I decided to bring this conversation forward: to say hi to lichens, to Kefalonia, to Greece, to encounters, and to the ongoing process of seeing this world and myself.
This project is not a conclusion, but a new beginning. It is a way to keep looking, keep touching, keep questioning, and keep learning how to be with the more-than-human world.