Marginalia I explores the relationship between dreams, creative writing, and the unconscious, featuring three texts by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis: “On Dreams,” “Creative Writers and Day Dreaming,” and “Psychoanalysis and Culture.” One phrase that is underlined in the collage papers speaks of Freud “adjusting his style to his audience,” words that invoke the methods used—and compromises made—in the hope of being received. This piece depicts the obscuration and curation of the unconscious, depicted through motifs of entanglement and complex layering, and the use of dark areas suggesting hidden dimensions awaiting discovery through dreaming and creative work.

Marginalia II addresses psychoanalytic theories of loss, communication, and creativity, linked here to immigration and the postcolonial diaspora. Texts by and about Freud, reshaped through being torn, share space with vintage Indian stamps and a poem from the 17th century South Indian poet and social critic Vemana, placed within an image reminiscent of a postmark. A partial translation of the hand-lettered Telugu script reads: “the rain drop that enters an oyster turns into a pearl; the rain drop that enters water remains water…in a promising place the result cannot disappoint.”

Marginalia III emphasizes the word “humanity,” circled in ink at the top of the piece. The texture of the naturally-aged paper is retained, vulnerable and available, offering the inviting tactility of the printed page, with torn edges on every side. Green dots and small paper elements evoke sparks and sprouts of creative processes, also explored in the texts, by Freud. The viewer is invited to become a reader of a Freud who is writing about play, “poetic creation,” and creativity, themes that invite the viewer to define these experiences from a position of self-authorization to unleash latent potentials within.