Truth, 2020, Speedball, eggshells, acrylic, 11" x 8" x 7.5"

The Muhammad Ali Museum and Center permanent collection

Since 2016, I’ve been layering objects in eggshell veneer. My eggshell-based work has arisen from formal experimentation and latent exposure to sơn mài lacquer ware, an often-overlooked traditional craft related to my cultural heritage. I often cover forceful objects, like hammers and boxing gloves, in eggshells to create both aesthetic and conceptual tensions.

The deliberate slowness of this work bears emphasis. It requires time-consuming labor and care. Such slowness has given me the space to meditate on possible connections between identity, alternative ways of being, and non-Western epistemologies. The unhurried demands of my eggshell sculptures offer me a personal way of working through a broader, growing set of concerns about slowness as a decolonial strategy, and a way to resist the ever-quickening time pressures of capitalism. By focusing on slow and careful intentionality, the excessive idealization of speed and efficiency can be decentered and decelerated.