Lungs

My original idea stemmed from a poem that I wrote a couple years ago titled Lungs. It is a celebration of my Malaysian culture, centering around a fruit called the rambutan, native to Southeast Asian countries. The fruit in this video’s sense is a symbol for my hometown’s lifestyle, from the night markets that fill up the street to the smell of fried carrot cake wafting from another stall down. The fruits inhale and exhale throughout the short clip, representing the lungs of Malaysia and my hometown. Everytime I encounter my culture, I take another breath of home. Although I’m not originally from there, my parents engrained a sense of pride and love for Malaysia that I wanted to reflect in my art.

I put together the imagery in the video from a dozen photos online by cutting out their backgrounds and editing together scenes of tree roots, trees, and a night sky. I animated the rambutans in the trees to grow and shrink to emulate deep breaths that match the lines of my poem. (“The lungs of Malaysia’s jungles breathe for you”) Each scene aligns with the lines of the poem and brings the metaphor to life. The way trees are interconnected with roots, I’m rooted to this country I can call home.