Shells: Unfurling of Allure & Conquest, 2026, single-channel digital video projection, 30m.
Shells: Unfurling of Allure & Conquest is a myth — synthesising text, drawing, film, and archival footage — that follows two turtle brothers in search of new habitats. One turtle partners with a local heron to claim a home on a mountain, while the other turtle attempts to persuade a displaced hedgehog to join his clan. But when correspondence reveals the heron’s gift of feathers, a silent rivalry begins to warp the brothers’ relationship, and the other turtle’s kinship with the hedgehog begins to find form in a dark exchange.
What happens when language cannot find a form? Stemming from unresolved questions I had whilst an undergraduate student in linguistics, I turned to writing and painting — and have since synthesized both into film — to find shape for the tensions that occur when intentions and expressions misalign. Positioned between narrative fiction and visual ethnography, my work examines what unfolds when everyday modes of communication — shared gestures, social rituals, and mythic symbols — are forced to convey meaning beyond the limits of conventional language.
Shells: Unfurling of Allure & Conquest is a myth — synthesising text, drawing, film, and archival footage — that follows two turtle brothers in search of new habitats. One turtle partners with a local heron to claim a home on a mountain, while the other turtle attempts to persuade a displaced hedgehog to join his clan. But when correspondence reveals the heron’s gift of feathers, a silent rivalry begins to warp the brothers’ relationship, and the other turtle’s kinship with the hedgehog begins to find form in a dark exchange.
What happens when language cannot find a form? Stemming from unresolved questions I had whilst an undergraduate student in linguistics, I turned to writing and painting — and have since synthesized both into film — to find shape for the tensions that occur when intentions and expressions misalign. Positioned between narrative fiction and visual ethnography, my work examines what unfolds when everyday modes of communication — shared gestures, social rituals, and mythic symbols — are forced to convey meaning beyond the limits of conventional language.