mo japa!

mo japa! meaning "I escaped" in yoruba represents my journey of repositioning myself within my body explored using the awotele, a loose round neck shirt usually fabricated with either long or short sleeves, as a vehicle of exploration and reconfiguration. 

This sculpture serves as a metaphorical mirror of the (my) human body outside of its physical unit. Intentionally manipulating the form of the awotele using acrylics and wood, this sculpture explores the relationship between both materials to birth the relationship between the physical and social body. mo japa! is an expression of my understanding of how physical bodies inform social order and vice versa. The arrangements of lumber-treated wood leaping out of the chest region of the awotele signal the formation of the body (physical) as well as the continuous reconfiguration of the body (physical and social) through social experience. This evolution is projected in the wooden appendage-like form essentialized by the red and orange triangular impression on the awotele arm in a neuron-like formation that receives stimulus from both its internal environment and external environment. The red pastel lines extend and mimic the vascular system, representing the very life force that binds us to this social and physical experience

As such, this sculpture is a production of a body form- an unfinished (EXTRATERRESTRIAL) vessel that can be dynamically inhabited to inform one’s sense of self in one's body and external environment. Considering the idea that the body will always be on view and within view in the social landscape, mo japa! reflects a cumulative repositioning of autonomy and freedom within my body, reclaiming and re-envisioning my physical body as an unfinished vessel for reformation, healing, learning, and existence- that which I have oriented and situated myself within