Rasheed Lochan
Threshold
digital print
As a Caribbean person, what is seen as cultural staples might seem strange to an onlooker. New World pantry items such Ovaltine, Marmite, and Evaporated Milk. Indian spices. “Chinese Sauce”. Aside from food, speaking English. Growing up, Chinese food is seen as one-in-the same as Guyanese food as there is a notable Chinese diaspora who are a part of the Guyanese people as well as other parts of the Caribbean. Throughout my upbringing our family’s main take-out food of choice has been Guyanese-Chinese food. For such restaurants It is a common practice during the end of the year to gift scroll calendars with food orders. My piece blends this cultural context with the idea of “liminal spaces” and the contemporary environment. “Liminal spaces” usually emit an eerie sense of feeling like a place that exists both in reality and non-reality. An in-between, transitional space. Generally they come off as surreal (for example: “pool rooms”). Considering the current cultural landscape where the social environment and discourse pushes evermore into the digital realm, with the recent growing sophistication of artificial intelligent systems it feels as if we are approaching a “threshold” of sorts. Reality and non-reality are blending to the point where it is being increasingly harder to discern fabrication from “what is”. Contemporary culture itself is beginning to feel as if it is in a liminal area. It is up to the onlooker to determine whether or not the images depicted in this piece are of places that exist in reality or are fabricated.