This project was selected by Photomonitor for commendation at the Free Range graduate exhibitions, July 2023.
Project Statement
As a continuation of her prior body of work ‘In dreams, I wonder of you’, ‘homecoming’ further meditates upon Serena’s personal relationships to land and self as a child of Asian diaspora and mixed-race identity. The series follows as she welcomes the interwoven feelings of presence and absence that were experienced while on her month-long stay in Thailand earlier this year. Lead by intentions of questioning, the images follow an intuitively lead approach as she enquires into one’s sense of place. The images seek to consider the push and pull between feelings of distance and connection in diasporic identities; navigating the third space, the in-between and unseen. Comprised of family portraiture, landscape, and found objects, the work offers itself as an extended love letter to Serena’s mother and to her ancestry. It is to approach visual language as a means to self-knowing, to attempt to bring the immaterial and unseen into our visual and physical spaces.
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Biography
Serena Bergis is a British – Thai artist currently based in Dorset, England. Having practiced as a multidisciplinary artist for most of her formal education, she now works predominantly within photographic mediums. Concerned with notions of selfhood, Burgis contemplates the profound connections between people, place and time, asking how do we situate and relate ourselves to the world. Her practice follows intuitively lead approaches, often inviting personal and intimate narratives of womanhood, Asian diaspora and memory through moments of stillness and tension. Having written in personal diaristic forms throughout her life, Burgis has begun to introduce her interests in lyrical writing and poetry as supportive material to her visual practice and intends to embed them further moving forward. Additionally, she is concerned with notions of communication and language, and plans to further explore such motifs in her coming practice.
