By inhabiting a liminal space that might be most accurately described as quiet - a space in which ideas do not coalesce as words, much less text - Kumari activates a critical imagination that first of all subverts text as the Janus-face, so to speak, of art. However, it must be quickly pointed out that this wordlessness is a subversive effect, and not' an a priori provocation, of a practice that creates fleeting, disturbing stillness. (Even the word 'subversive' seems inappropriate; too focused on projected design.) One recognizes the site of artistic intent, not in a scheme, but in the fact and the moment and the ironic quiet/disquiet of encounter with difference.

Kumari pictures difference as self moving within and without (and through) the specificity's of ethnic, gender, and class givens of her country of origin, Sri Lanka. While well crafted, the work does not look belabored, as though the meditations that led to her works had a slightly self-distancing, off-hand character. Yet that same distant quality also reveals emotional intensity. Thus the surprise: it is precisely the lack of stridency that conjures the possibility of depth of understanding. Thus the afterthought: that depth of understanding is possible to realize outside the channels of talk. And thus the moving effect: in the silent, momentary locking/looking of image and viewer upon each other-difference, one realizes, is fluid, unpredictable, negotiable, lively, and strangely familiar. Strange-ness is a paradoxical mood.

Most importantly, the strange one is not, after all (or not solely) the person in the image. The stranger is someone within the viewer. And the someone who made the image. Here again, text is potentially entrapment. It needs mentioning, also en passant, that Freud's thoughts on the uncanny, the moment of unheimlich, the point at which one sees the stranger within oneself, seems relevant in this connection. Cautionary word: the grand machines of interpretation will stifle the fugitive unease and delight of Kumari's images. Best to confront them, and remain still. The stranger within will be flitting between self and other.

Marian Pastor Roces

Marian Pastor Roces is an independent curator and critic from the Philippines who works, lectures and writes internationally. Her theoretical work is grounded in the politics of cultural representation, mainly in museums, but also in relation to larger agendas dealing with indigenous cultures, the traumas of modernization, and power as it operates in urbanization. Her recent curatorial work includes 'Sheer Realities: Body, Power and Clothing in 19th Century Philippines' (Asia Society, New York City, 2000); 'Laon-Laan', which deals with the politics, science, and culture of rice in the Philippines (National Museum, 2003); and 'Science Fictions',' a major international exhibition of conternporary artists who are critiquing the orders of knowledge promoted by specific sciences. (Earl Lu Gallery, Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore Art Museum, and the Esplanade, Singapore, 2003). Recently the Prince Claus Fund invited her to organise the upcoming symposium 'Beauty in Context' in Manila.