Casts of the British Museum’s exhibition catalogue for Burma to Myanmar, a show purporting to chart 1500 years of history in the country of my mother’s birth.

Illustrating a deep devotion to materials, each cast attempts to disrupt the structures and legacies of colonialism: exploding polyurethane foam, melted beeswax, collapsed glass wax, cracked milk-based concrete, lost wax burst with boiling thanaka plaster, soap scented with essential oils associated with death and memory and used to wash my children.

Inadvertently the work explores the reproduction of colonial structures through exoticism, and betrays personal grief about the lack of lived connection with the country, culture, and my grandfather.