Between the Veins
Alice aslem
Virginia Commonwealth University
What happens to a childhood stored behind a password? Between the Veins began while scrolling through photographs of my son on my phone. As the images multiplied, they became an overwhelming digital archive, making me question what kind of memories I am preserving for him. Growing up between analog and digital worlds, the work explores the relationship between material memory and digital storage. My experience growing up in Qatar within an Indian family, and later becoming part of a Pakistani family through marriage, has also shaped my understanding of belonging across cultures and borders. Photographs from my son’s childhood are transferred onto screw-pine leaves from India and Qatari palm, then woven together by hand. The materials carry traces of the places that shape my identity, bringing separate geographies into one tactile form. For my son, the work offers a physical connection to his Indian heritage, which political borders make difficult to access. By giving physical form to an excess of images, Between the Veins makes the weight of over-documentation visible, transforming a digital archive into a tangible and embodied memory.