Wanderlust.

MFA Thesis Show 2011
Six handmade scroll books, digital video projection and an iPad publication.a book is a road walked with an author

A book is a room where readers or authors can meet. A book is also a journey of making, a road of self-expression and a way to reconcile inner view of the world with the outward existence. Books are precious, useless, obscene, they are mystical, ritual and temporary — anything we want them to be. Books are the best solution for our memory loss and the obsession with what if scenarios.

What if Pablo Neruda and Masanobu Fukuoka met each other. A zealous poet/politician with a gift for lusty language and an anti-government revolutionary farmer/nihilist. Both of them envisioned change. Both of them lived out their beliefs. It would be interesting to observe their conversation.

wanderlust explores two most important journeys a man can embark on — loving and growing. It is an imaginary dialogue between Pablo Neruda and Masanobu Fukuoka, where one man speaks of his journey of love for a woman and other speaks of love for the earth. It is a dialogue between the body and the nature. My work is about journey. About going somewhere and yet never getting there.

It is about imagining, dreaming and making words visible.

School of Fine Arts Gallery, Bloomington, IN


Now
This year I started teaching at the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. I teach advanced typography, conceptual development and co-teach a graduate seminar class. Life is good and sunny with mountains, strange plants and animals all around. For more recent updates, please visit my blog http://www.katyareka.blogspot.com ✌