The light that doesn't reach
In The light that doesn’t reach, the camera follows a figure, her skin covered in yellow turmeric paste, as she walks through a pine forest set in the Danish landscape. In the cool, de-saturated setting, the warm stroke of turmeric yellow moves through the trees, revealing itself in glimpses between the blue-green shadows of the trees. The turmeric is a metaphor for the artist’s origin—it recalls the scent of spice embedded in the walls of the home; the bittersweet taste of honey-turmeric paste used to cure sore throat; the warmth of hot turmeric dough applied to heal wounds. In the video, the turmeric paste on the figure’s skin becomes a marker used to navigate within this unfamiliar surrounding. It is a veil that both embeds origin into skin, providing a sense of known amidst the unknown, as well as a veil that prevents the skin from surfacing into this new landscape. It is a yellow glaze that illuminates the figure from the darkness of the surroundings, yet simultaneously filters out the blue light of the place from reaching her.