Projects
I found a fish inside my soup
painted wood, stoneware bowl
I found a fish inside my soup is a return to dinner time, always a high point on any given day. The whole family would sit on the floor the Malay way, eating with our right hands the Muslim way. Fish would arrive complete, in soup or curry, baked or steamed, with heads, tails and bones intact. Afterwards I would pick through the corpse dissecting jaws, fins, eyes and complete skeletons, feeling out connections and trying to discover how they moved, who they were and what they thought. This time it was a Tailor, caught in the Swan River and pulled apart until I was told off for being a little too intent on making a mess of the meal. To me this was curiosity, a chance to dig through the mechanics of life right there on my plate. There was a simplicity to the function of a fish that seemed so close to grasp, dinner and discovery overlapped in equal wonder.