About the installation

We arrive at the moment when the portal to Plump's Topia opens for little boy plump. The flowers in this garden are larger than life. This allows us to see the garden from a child's perspective. This is the first chapter in the story of Plump's Topia. It signifies a journey yet to begin and a world yet to be explored.

Plump's Topia is a story of growth and perseverance. It's about a little boy that wanders into a land where only queens and princesses exist. As he travels from one land to another, he meets queens that tell him about their lives. Allowing him to see his own tribulations in a new light.

The story begins in university. I decided that I wanted to be a fashion photographer. I needed to build a portfolio but had no access to fashion, so I learned how to sew. I wasn't really making clothes, though; I was making props. Which I didn't have a problem with. The pictures looked like people from another world. That's how the idea came about. It made sense because

A) I love a good alternate universe fantasy world story.

B) it allowed me to present a concept without needing it to be very deep. I had trouble coming up with 'deep' concepts at the time because I hadn't started digging deep into my own mind. So I presented the first series titled "the people of Plump's Topia". I then began writing stories about these people, the lands they came from, and how they interacted with our world. Later on, I realized that all the stories were actually about me. Everything related back to something I hadn't made sense of, like the concept of death. After that realization, I fell into needing everything to make sense. Combine that with low self-esteem and low self-worth and design school critiques. I came to a point where creating wasn't an option anymore. So from 2015 to 2018, all I was doing was reflecting back on the work I did. Also, try to figure out what kind of artist I am. Is photography my medium? Sometimes, my process starts there, but I can't say that that is my medium. When I was presenting my work as a photographer, the fact that they were only pictures hanging on a wall wasn't satisfying. I wanted everyone to experience the photos rather than just look at them.

There are so many things I want to say, because from 2015-2018 and 2019 as depressive as those years were I had so many discoveries about my world. One of them was; I imagined how the world would look in real life. I wanted the journey to be a spiral. You lose yourself and learn things about yourself as you go deeper. But what happens in the center, though? I had this idea that when you reach the center, there's a statue of some sort that symbolizes the viewers' spirit. The very core of oneself. Now here's the crazy part, in 2019, I came about some tweets that were quotes from someone called Queen Alara. As I dug deeper, I found an old blog I had where I used to write small stories, and some of them were in the voice of Queen Alara. That was crazy because I thought Plump's Topia started in Uni in 2013. The writing was from 2012. So who is queen Alara and what is she to me? Is she my alter ego? Because in one of the writings, she says between man, I sit. So is my spirit female? So many questions and things that will be explored later on. But this got me to a point where I realized that Alara was the very core of my world. The statue stands in the middle of Plumps Topia. This whole thing is the perfect example of how my artistic process is. I do or create something then realize what it actually is. Anyways fast-forward to now, and we have finally arrived at a complete story that I am more than excited to share.