Bolivar Art Gallery
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  • Tony M Bingham // SECAC Fellowship Award
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      • bad infinity // hannah smith // mfa thesis show
      • Scarcity // Frank Geiser // MFA Thesis Show
      • Self-Soothe // Chelsea Clarke // MFA Thesis Show
      • Tied to the Land // Jonathan Forrence // MFA Thesis Show
    • MFA show 2021
    • The Problem Body // Dimelza Broche
    • 2021 Digital Media Design Capstone: What Lies Here, What Lies Ahead
      • Megan Andrews
      • Ambre Armstrong
      • Mariah Beegle
      • Mya Grace Bevis
      • Dixie Browning
      • Kelsey Clark
      • John-Michael Crawford
      • Maddi Echsner
      • Angelique Embry
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      • Madison Haven
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      • Chevin Kennedy
      • Sammie Kiewel
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      • Jean Carlos Pena-Lozada
      • Ashley Poore
      • Kleine Powell
      • Jordan Pullen
      • Jake Reese
      • Stuart Rice
      • Nora Smith
      • Bryce Stevenson
      • Lily Turner
      • Nicolas Volosky
    • Art Studio Senior Exhibitions
      • exit strategy // group exhibition 2021
      • smudge // Julia Andrus
      • a collective change in circumstances // hope bennett
      • Ties to Tunes // Allyson Cain
      • Identity // Margaret Dostart
        • Margaret Dostart // Sculpture
        • Margaret Dostart // Photography
        • Margaret Dostart // Screen Printing
        • Margaret Dostart // Drawing
        • Margaret Dostart // Painting
      • title to come // grace farish // bfa solo show
      • Things aren't always as they seem // Shelbey Nicole Fox
      • Psuedosovereign // Ellan Luna // bfa show
      • Rose Colored // Madison McGill
      • REASSEMBLY // Abi Peck
      • the others // terence powell
      • on the ground // reagan profit // bfa solo show
      • Sentient // Courtney Smith
      • Cities on Fire So Skate // Al Theiss
      • OH SO DUMB // Mackenzie Walden
      • Perfectly Imperfect// Mark Wynn
      • Foundations Show 2021
      • You Stole My Hat // Jenny Ustick
      • Archive of Past Shows
  • New Page
  • Home
  • SECAC Members Juried Exhibition
  • Tony M Bingham // SECAC Fellowship Award
  • Spring 2021 shows
    • MFA Thesis Shows
      • Flowers for the Saints // Amalia Galdona Broche // MFA Thesis Show
      • bad infinity // hannah smith // mfa thesis show
      • Scarcity // Frank Geiser // MFA Thesis Show
      • Self-Soothe // Chelsea Clarke // MFA Thesis Show
      • Tied to the Land // Jonathan Forrence // MFA Thesis Show
    • MFA show 2021
    • The Problem Body // Dimelza Broche
    • 2021 Digital Media Design Capstone: What Lies Here, What Lies Ahead
      • Megan Andrews
      • Ambre Armstrong
      • Mariah Beegle
      • Mya Grace Bevis
      • Dixie Browning
      • Kelsey Clark
      • John-Michael Crawford
      • Maddi Echsner
      • Angelique Embry
      • Karley French
      • Kendra Graham
      • Abby Green
      • Madison Haven
      • Kyle Israel
      • Emily Johnson
      • Cassidy Justice
      • Chevin Kennedy
      • Sammie Kiewel
      • Julia Meyer
      • Jean Carlos Pena-Lozada
      • Ashley Poore
      • Kleine Powell
      • Jordan Pullen
      • Jake Reese
      • Stuart Rice
      • Nora Smith
      • Bryce Stevenson
      • Lily Turner
      • Nicolas Volosky
    • Art Studio Senior Exhibitions
      • exit strategy // group exhibition 2021
      • smudge // Julia Andrus
      • a collective change in circumstances // hope bennett
      • Ties to Tunes // Allyson Cain
      • Identity // Margaret Dostart
        • Margaret Dostart // Sculpture
        • Margaret Dostart // Photography
        • Margaret Dostart // Screen Printing
        • Margaret Dostart // Drawing
        • Margaret Dostart // Painting
      • title to come // grace farish // bfa solo show
      • Things aren't always as they seem // Shelbey Nicole Fox
      • Psuedosovereign // Ellan Luna // bfa show
      • Rose Colored // Madison McGill
      • REASSEMBLY // Abi Peck
      • the others // terence powell
      • on the ground // reagan profit // bfa solo show
      • Sentient // Courtney Smith
      • Cities on Fire So Skate // Al Theiss
      • OH SO DUMB // Mackenzie Walden
      • Perfectly Imperfect// Mark Wynn
      • Foundations Show 2021
      • You Stole My Hat // Jenny Ustick
      • Archive of Past Shows
  • New Page
Nicolette Lim
​nicolettelim.com
Picture
Seeds of Our Flesh
charred wood, chalk, gouache, mixed media
2020


​This work was part of an installation in my exhibition Strange Harvest. The exhibition explores the present day effects of inherited colonizer era laws in my home country Malaysia and it’s myth of inevitability. These inherited myths from our colonizers of how things should be, continue to employ violence towards women, the LGBT community as well as our natural environment. The setting for the narrative is the annual August haze in Malaysia, a direct result of slash and burn practices introduced in the mid 20th century by the colonizers. The haze would be so thick that the sun would be lost and the air was painful to breathe. Within this context, I create a narrative exposing memories of my girlhood on negotiating my sexual identity and gender performance as a queer person in Malaysian academic institutions while wading through a haze where I could only see my own two feet.

Artist Statement
​

The larger theme of my work involves the annual unregulated slash-burnings in the Sumatras that has been in practice by the palm oil industry since the 1980’s. The fires result in a haze that blankets Southeast Asian countries such as my own, Malaysia. As a child I had assumed the August haze was an inevitable result of nature, like rainfall or the sunset. It was the norm to see dead birds littering the ground, their small bodies crushed from human step; it wasn’t enough that we had taken their breath away too.

The slash and burn method was originally implemented by European colonizers, unfamiliar with our soils and ancient rainforest. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. The biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil superficially fertile. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move over to a new area. The time it takes for the land to recover can be as little as five years (this is mostly in regions north of the hemisphere, with younger forest and looser soils) to more than twenty years.Often fires get out of hand, encroaching into protected lands. Because Sumatran land is made up of ancient rainforest, with dense, clay-like soil, it takes much longer to recover, leaving mass amounts of land desolate and open to erosion, yet it continues to be used by Palm Oil industries due it’s cost efficiency.

​In Malaysia, oppressive laws pertaining to LGBTQ rights and gender performance have also been inherited by our British colonizers. These laws and attitudes against queerness and femininity have continued to be implemented today. Growing up queer under that stifling political climate while watching the people in my community fall, was enough for me to want to fly away before the haze of oppression took me too. I am interested in drawing parallels between this inherited myth of inevitable ecological destruction and the destruction enacted towards the queer community and women.
  • Home
  • SECAC Members Juried Exhibition
  • Tony M Bingham // SECAC Fellowship Award
  • Spring 2021 shows
    • MFA Thesis Shows
      • Flowers for the Saints // Amalia Galdona Broche // MFA Thesis Show
      • bad infinity // hannah smith // mfa thesis show
      • Scarcity // Frank Geiser // MFA Thesis Show
      • Self-Soothe // Chelsea Clarke // MFA Thesis Show
      • Tied to the Land // Jonathan Forrence // MFA Thesis Show
    • MFA show 2021
    • The Problem Body // Dimelza Broche
    • 2021 Digital Media Design Capstone: What Lies Here, What Lies Ahead
      • Megan Andrews
      • Ambre Armstrong
      • Mariah Beegle
      • Mya Grace Bevis
      • Dixie Browning
      • Kelsey Clark
      • John-Michael Crawford
      • Maddi Echsner
      • Angelique Embry
      • Karley French
      • Kendra Graham
      • Abby Green
      • Madison Haven
      • Kyle Israel
      • Emily Johnson
      • Cassidy Justice
      • Chevin Kennedy
      • Sammie Kiewel
      • Julia Meyer
      • Jean Carlos Pena-Lozada
      • Ashley Poore
      • Kleine Powell
      • Jordan Pullen
      • Jake Reese
      • Stuart Rice
      • Nora Smith
      • Bryce Stevenson
      • Lily Turner
      • Nicolas Volosky
    • Art Studio Senior Exhibitions
      • exit strategy // group exhibition 2021
      • smudge // Julia Andrus
      • a collective change in circumstances // hope bennett
      • Ties to Tunes // Allyson Cain
      • Identity // Margaret Dostart
        • Margaret Dostart // Sculpture
        • Margaret Dostart // Photography
        • Margaret Dostart // Screen Printing
        • Margaret Dostart // Drawing
        • Margaret Dostart // Painting
      • title to come // grace farish // bfa solo show
      • Things aren't always as they seem // Shelbey Nicole Fox
      • Psuedosovereign // Ellan Luna // bfa show
      • Rose Colored // Madison McGill
      • REASSEMBLY // Abi Peck
      • the others // terence powell
      • on the ground // reagan profit // bfa solo show
      • Sentient // Courtney Smith
      • Cities on Fire So Skate // Al Theiss
      • OH SO DUMB // Mackenzie Walden
      • Perfectly Imperfect// Mark Wynn
      • Foundations Show 2021
      • You Stole My Hat // Jenny Ustick
      • Archive of Past Shows
  • New Page