Sylvia Eken ‘22
IMDA MFA: UMbc

Transformation: An Interplay of Life, Culture, and Heritage, 2022
Mixed media installation
Running time 3 minutes, :25 seconds

Cities are more than their visible attributes; they are a metaphor for living and change. A city consists of multiple internal and external structures creating underlying social, economic, and physical patterns that constitute a network. I explore how networks function dynamically and non-hierarchically, generating new dialogues as they expand like rhizomes.

Maps are not objective representations. Transformation: An Interplay of Life, Culture, and Heritage, my installation, uses maps to chart and reshape boundaries, creating places from which new meaning emerges. I invite visitors to walk through and experience this multifaceted space that intertwines and honors multiple viewpoints and histories. This space, which originated from my own story, becomes a shared space. I claim a connected life that recognizes the individual but simultaneously asks the individual, a node, to identify, communicate, and value others and their experiences equally. The only way forward is through an informed, entangled future.