Gallery: Feelings Are Data
In May 2023, community members engaged in play and self-reflection at my exhibition, feelings are data. Through a collection of visual and participatory pieces, visitors to the Harvard Ed Portal’s Crossings Gallery in Allston explored how we make meaning from our feelings. Hands-on activities–like a tarot-inspired card deck, response cards, and collage magnets–invited visitors to be curious about community, care, and their internal worlds.
On May 12, 2023, the Harvard Ed Portal hosted a celebratory event featuring creative responses to individual pieces, including original poetry by payal kumar, new music by Ava Sophia, and kathak dance performances by Chhandika. Community members enjoyed the performances, mingle with their neighbors, pulled cards from the tarot-inspired deck, and added their reflections to the installation.
photos by Mel Taing
“My collages are artifacts of reflection and physical representations of the ideas, source texts, and questions I simmer on during the act of making. Through the tactile experience of interacting with these works as a deck of cards, I am inviting you to embark on your own integrative and reflective journey.
Through my work as an educator and mental health professional, I’ve witnessed the possibilities that emerge when we nurture our capacity to sit with difficult thoughts. It is beautiful work, but can demand much of us.
In one difficult season of my life, I turned to pulling tarot cards. There was something meditative in the structure of shuffling a deck, drawing a single card, and paging through the tiny accompanying guidebook to find its meaning. It was tangible and doable. The daily ritual of pulling cards became gentle scaffolding for making more sense of my inner world.
I hope as you pull a card or find yourself drawn to a specific piece, you feel inspired to approach your feelings with a little more compassion—or, at the very least, with greater neutrality. In exploring these collages and ascribing your own meaning to them, you might find that feelings are not “right” or “wrong.” Rather, they can gift us the information needed to spelunk into the depths of our personality and calibrate how we move through the world.”
