I learned fire at her knee
Metal platform, UV print perspex. resin, kinetic stainless steel fan
42 x 123 x 153 cm

In I learned fire at her knee, Natalie transformed the traditional Thai hand fans into a system of metallic ceiling fans—only to be placed on the floor—reversing both orientation and purpose. In her childhood, when children passed in front of adults, they were expected to bow. But as a child, she would often run past, and her great-grandmother would lightly strike her legs with the fan she had been using to cool herself. A gesture that is at once disciplinary and affectionate, a form of care that is both tender and strict. Now, as her grandmother's memory fades, as the teeth once stained by betel chewing are gone, these recollections become what anchors Natalie to her maternal lineage, where love often means to burn and bite, contradictions she has learned, the hard way, not only to reconcile with, but also to embrace.