Jal Jalaa
Jal Jalaa
Aarushi Zarthoshtimanesh
This piece is a collection of 7 poems titled 'Jal Jalaa / Water b(o)urn' .
In the language of Hindi the word 'jal' means water and 'jalaa' translates to the English word burn. Through this elemental dichotomy expressed in two different tongues, the title attempts to reflect the cross-pollination of emotions through language - its textuality and contextuality that is woven through the poetry within.
Playing with multiple forms and shapes of poems - from concrete to lyric poetry - the seven bodies of buoyant metaphors seek to move fluidly within the white pages - as if traversing the seven seas, converging on the page to form a confluence of plurality.
The themes within the poems traverse the reality of identities displaced, disjointed yet whole and cultures formed at the borders of multinational histories. Land, water and the body formed from and on it are carved into vessels filled with letters or direct addresses to past colonisers in a language they may not comprehend.
Influenced by Teresa Busuttil's exhibition titled 'Asleep with the Fishes' and her evocative art practice that explores the worlds of her personal and political truths, these poems seek to embody that play and joy of journeying into unfamiliar territories of othered islands - through the boats of familiar, familial pasts.
Aarushi Zarthoshtimanesh (she/ her, b. 2000) is a passionate artist, student, writer, and mango lover. She identifies as an Indian-born queer woman, raised in the hustle and bustle of the city of Mumbai, India. But, her great-grandparents originally lived and fled from Iran, attempting to escape the early Mughal invasions, finding themselves displaced on the shores of western India. Aarushi’s practice now thrives on Bidjigal and Gadigal land, where through the poetics of painting, installation, performance and moving image she wishes to materialise and spatialise the felt reality of displacement and re-examine what shapes and forms our social identities – beyond borders and binaries.