Bound by Longing,
Video Performance and live Performance, 2016

I carry bound memories: pages filled with stories, experiences, and histories passed down through generations, alongside those I have lived myself. I have heard these stories and inhabited these moments so deeply that they feel like my own, like songs whose lyrics I know by heart. Some pages are filled with silence, absence, and forgetting; others are marked by my own experiences.

The binding is part of an inherited female experience: living for and alongside family as a granddaughter, daughter, and caregiver. In this performance, I stack and balance these bound recollections one by one. Each album carries the weight of memory, responsibility, and care. Together they form a physical manifestation of inherited herstory, familial obligation, and personal history.

As the weight accumulates, the act becomes an exercise in endurance. The body negotiates balance while carrying memories that are both chosen and inherited. The performance reflects on caregiving as embodied labour and the often-unseen responsibilities passed between generations. These responsibilities shape identity, relationships, and the spaces we occupy.

I continue to lift and pile the albums, creating space for memories that have yet to be made. Yet the balancing act causes me to sway. Suspended between inheritance and possibility, I persist in the hope that by carrying these histories, I might also make room for new experiences, new connections, and new moments to be bound by.