Durga Mahishasura Mardini

Durga Mahishasura Mardini (Invincible Slayer of the Demon Mahish) explores my identity by presenting the myth of the Hindu warrior Goddess Durga, after whom I am named. As an immigrant child growing up in Vancouver, and attending a predominantly Eurocentric elementary school, I was unhappy about having such a foreign sounding name. I would search rotary display racks, naively hoping that my name would be among the many North American names found on keychains and other such items. I was constantly singled out for having a name that was seen as being ‘different,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘unique,’ or ‘weird.’ I was even confused by my apparent inability to ‘correctly’ pronounce my own name. This work presents the myth of Goddess Durga as an allegory for my personal struggle in coming to terms with the resonance and meaning of my own name. 

Durga Mahishasura Mardini conveys the key moments of the myth of the Goddess Durga as staged self-portrait photographs. By virtue of his devotion to Lord Shiva, the buffalo demon Mahish had been granted a great boon. He could not be killed by ‘man or God.’ This rendered the Gods powerless against the evil Mahishasura and so, in order to defeat him, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (the Gods of Creation, Preservation and Destruction respectively), combined their efforts to create the Goddess Durga. In my photographs, the studio backdrop is used as a canvas for my own hand drawings, creating a hybrid realm of myth and reality. My hand drawing becomes a process of reconciling my identity with the Goddess who was created because the Gods lacked capability. By inserting my image and my gesture into the representation, I engage with the symbols and meanings of ‘Durga’. Traditionally, even boys are named after this female Goddess as her power transcends her gender identity. In this work, I express the shakti (feminine energy) that is inherent in our name. 

(2019)