Portals in a Pandemic

Creative Arts Fellowship 2020-2021, University of Pittsburgh Honors College

por·tal | \ ˈpȯr-təl \ noun 

1. a doorway, gate, or other entrance, especially a large and imposing one

This project was inspired by Arundhati Roy’s article “The pandemic is a portal” & my homecoming with artmaking and myself during 2020. We are stepping through a portal, a moment where we can choose to leave things behind that do not serve us and step lightly through with our reevaluated priorities.

In the portal my mundane surroundings became liminal spaces, untethered from the burden of previous expectations and weight. My sketchbooks, previously discarded out of frustration and the lack of importance I assigned to them, the lack of value I believed art contributed to my life, now accompany me wherever I go. My apartment living room became a universe in itself, a space where friends communicate and heal and celebrate, where trees could take root. My childhood bedroom became a reunion with my younger self where I sought her imagination and explored what brought her joy.

I hope to explore the truths revealed in the physical act of folding involved in my artist’s book. I envisioned this book as a simultaneous portal to both the past and future, using the flux of the present, the bleed of the past, and the wonder of the mundane to explore how I move through this moment. How I am still my teenage self and how this reunion can inform my future relationship with myself and my surroundings.