The wing we never had

The water we never touched

La Tijera, 4 minute walk from Rio River, 2025

The exhibition investigated how the idea of freedom is internalized through the body and shaped by place. Rather than defining freedom as a political concept, the work approached it as a sensory and spatial experience. 

Light functioned as a material that divided the gallery into planes, producing shadows that recalled the surface of water and suggested movement without access. Two suspended structures, reminiscent of wings, referenced freedom as a familiar but depleted symbol, reduced and stripped down to their fragile framework, like inherited ideals that no longer fully carry us. A live performance activated the installation by whispering these questions from the random audience: What is freedom to you? How do you feel freedom?  inviting visitors into quiet, intimate form of participation, where conversation happens softly and slowly and allowing the site and the body to jointly produce meaning.

This journey of discovering how we internalize freedom started from a location meaningful to me, a gallery within 4 minutes' walk from the border wall and close to the Rio river.

Poster Design By Sarah Raishi