I research Silences & Absences
Visible, communicable, uncategorizable silences, or absences that are beyond theorization. Loud, bold, messy, and untranslatable silences. Silences that have taught me how to resist more than any words or speeches. Absences caused by political violence, trauma, dislocation, forgotten memories, or maybe unforgotten, but unspeakable memories. Absences that are part of our everyday assemblages. As someone whose whole life has been molded and shaped by silence and absence, I’d like to understand what they are. What do they signify, and/or how do they work politically?
In many ways, what has historically been deemed “nothing” (nothing important, nothing relevant, nothing significant) has either been erased, violated, or colonized. The questions remain then: how can we be responsible to the silence of a space and its hauntings?
The challenge of researching these topics is that it requires us to look away from the tangible, documented world. How can we map the location of silence/ absence? How can we create a new method that moves beyond and challenges the conventional? And most importantly, how do we avoid categorizing or creating another mould while doing that? These and many more questions shape the basis of my research, where I explore methodologies that allow us to write silence and absence without writing them.