Paradoxes of Plenty #51 (Big Wave)

The work Paradossi dell’Abbondanza #51 (Big Wave) (Paradoxes of Plenty #51 [Big Wave]) – commissioned by the Dhaka Art Summit 2023, curated by Diana Campbell – cites in its subtitle a reference to the extreme weather phenomena that placed Bangladesh seventh among the ten countries most affected by the climate crisis between 2000 and 2019. The large-scale drawing shows a freak wave that, as it rises, reveals the depths of the seabed where multicellular and multispecies ecosystems coexist with schools of fish, made with the Japanese technique of gyotaku. Big wave also refers, in a metaphorical sense, to the perfect wave, an extreme surfing legend, a natural event with the lethal power of a tsunami (which hit Bangladesh in 2004), and is thus also a tribute to Ayesha, the main character in the film No Dorai (Dare to Surf, 2019), which revolves around a young girl who becomes a surfer to escape the social norms that would place her in an arranged marriage.