05 / 06
The Pawn
Core Themes
Party exploitation, expendability, the elite-versus-grassroots divide, women as symbolic frontline tools.
Artist Statement
Often positioned to represent progress but easily sacrificed and excluded from the very structures it helped to legitimise. Like pawns on a chessboard, women are frequently moved strategically, positioned symbolically, and sacrificed when politically convenient, while real power remains concentrated and safeguarded. In this game, she is expected to carry the weight without being granted authority or security in return. Once her purpose is served, she is returned to invisibility, stripped of agency, and excluded from the very structures she helped legitimise. It declares that in this game, female power is seen as an anomaly that the system eventually corrects through exclusion.
“If I had been a man, they would have made me a candidate. Instead, they made me a volunteer again.”
Concept Breakdown
The installation tells the story of a highly educated woman with years of experience in grassroots political movements. Despite her dedication, her party’s response to her ambitions was always the same. She was told she was needed on the frontline, leading rallies and protests, never at the table. When she was violently and wrongfully arrested, her party wasted no time weaponising her image. Her arrest photos were circulated without her consent as the “face of oppression” to advance their agenda, yet not a single effort was made to secure her release. She spent six months in jail, funding her own legal defence. Upon her release, she was met with brief condolences and asked when she could return to work. That was the moment she walked away.
The installation presents a chess set as a metaphor for political manipulation, with the powerful moving pawns to serve their agendas while risking nothing themselves. The board is arranged with a solitary pawn frozen mid-threat, about to be taken by a knight suspended in the air. Viewers can only move the pawns; all other pieces are fixed in place. The final detail is quiet but pointed: the queen has been replaced by another king.