An interactive solo exhibition of analog snapshots and written snippets with blank notebook pages awaiting the musings of willing strangers.
35mm + 120 film
2014 | Cafe Paloma | Seattle, WA
i won’t let it start because i don’t want it to end
here i sit with a glass too full and a heart too heavy / if i can’t get out of my head then i’ll place my head in a box of chatter so our words can keep company while i practice elective solitude
i know you / don’t i know you? / that knowing beard / the flannel and boots / those rough knuckles / the name doesn’t ring a bell / the conversation does / i’m already completing your sentences / you already have me / you already know
i’m happiest alone / i’m loneliest happy
to hang one’s thoughts on the line to dry
some nights i shake loose the mortar that binds to find my past imperfect was all along aligned
a fallen darling / teaching her to balance / please teach her to love
it is impossible not to look into his eyes / it is impossible not to smile, his sonrisa like the sunrise
there it is, my panoramic pipe dream / too far to fill my lens so near my skin is salt
you remind me of my future self
the moment between staying or leaving is a house of cards and i keep building more floors
the things i would redo are the ones i would do regardless
what guides her pen is the ephemeral, an act of capturing and keeping moments that comprise but a sliver of the delights and agonies of existence
and i will always seek collision / every bone intact, skin worn from stroke or from lack / dissolution is the only solution but the pollution in my nerves won’t let me forget / your flesh
if i tap my forehead long enough with the end of my ink will my skull crack open to spill the guts i lack?
is an encounter void of inhibition one to pursue or one to avoid?
i am that oversized heart in a stranger’s arms, bobbing through the nauseating normalcy of a faceless ocean
nos conocímos por algo
you make my artichoke heart flower
by the time i get there i’m going to have to walk this far back or this far forward
dear familiar stranger,
i write everywhere. i write for myself, to remember, to forget, and lately to forgive. in the dark, in the cold, on a bar stool listening to my pen mute the insistent nonsense. i write across strangers’ faces, in notebooks for sale, on my left hand. yet now that it has come time to write to you, my hand hesitates. perhaps because i’m learning not to make assumptions. so i write you a letter, knowing not what to say but i look forward to knowing you.
RANA SAN 