Dhiviya Prabaharan comes from the people of the kanthal flower, a rising fist blooming into fingers of fire. She is Tamil and calls home the lands where the trees stand tall in the water—Tkaronto, Scarborough, and Markham. Her family arrived in these lands as refugees. How Dhiviya speaks her tongue, and how she connects with the arts and culture of her community, were incredibly important to her family, for in the curl of her tongue lies the portal to her own liberation.

Through experiences of war, displacement, and colonial violence, so much has felt lost—her way of being, her food, rituals, traditions, medicines, and kinship with the land, water, and sky. This loss is a shared feeling among many. Yet, with this loss also comes a deep desire to truly know and be known by the land and creation. For whatever reason, this land has become the one she calls home. It is her desire to embody these feelings within her bones, to adopt this land and all its peoples as her relatives, and to collaborate in stewarding their collective acceleration across seven generations.

Dhiviya’s creative practice is one of ritual remembrance and the imagination of sovereign futures. Whether through batik, textiles, photography, film, or movement, she sees herself as a facilitator between earth and sky. Through any means necessary, she realizes and manifests the new ancient power of their stories, songs, sounds, memories, prayers, and dreams.

XiR thanks Aaron Kirsch for his generous in-kind support of this residency; as well as the financial support of Cooper Cole Gallery, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.