Tsohil Bhatia, Untitled (Fire Worker), 2024. Single-channel digital video with sound, 10:00 min., score by Lu Coy; photograph by Leo Ng, provided by CUE Art Foundation.
My mother’s hands are etched with constellations of burns; fire-marks from the kitchen. My grandmother carried some of them too. Now I find the same marks on my own body, an inheritance, and I’ve come to think of them as transgenerational markings that made their way onto my skin. We, the fire workers, carry the evidence of care on our bodies. Fire is trans-formative, shapeshifting; holding both care and destruction. My body offers it a piece of itself, my hair, and the fire takes more.
Tsohil Bhatia is an artist and homemaker based in Lenapehoking, now known as New York City.