Images: Ankit Mishra.

Skins (2019)

Adaptive Skins was a socially engaged art project in the desert village Jobner (60kms from Jaipur, India). A dynamic group of 12–16 year olds were introduced to paint for the very first time and invited to communicate a socially conscious message through a mural. Artists’ Lleah Smith and Ankit Mishra responded to the students’ interest in gender and caste divide and proposed a program where students assigned new and unusual skins to recognisable animals. Through playing with ‘expectation’ and what is socially accepted the students presented new ways of looking at the world and understanding one anothers’ individual and communal identities.

108 Acts of Care (for Manju) (2021-2022)

108 Acts of Care (for Manju) is a participatory artwork created in collaboration Fairfield City Museum and Gallery and Lost in Books, Fairfield, with audiences of all ages from culturally diverse backgrounds. Responding to the current moment and the COVID-19 period, the artwork invites audiences to reflect upon how 'acts of care' have changed during the pandemic and 'acts of care' they have personally enacted with a stranger or a loved one. 

Pre-2020 love was expressed through human touch - marked by hugs, holding hands and home visits. Today care is expressed through mindfully acknowledging safe distances, bumping elbows and offering sanitiser. Through 108 Acts of Care (for Manju) audiences are invited to visualise an act of care they have enacted during COVID-19 through the creation of a small commemorative flag. Each flag will be gifted back to the work and form part of a collaborative artwork.

There was a young boy who sometimes felt trapped.

Alone and vulnerable in a grey world. 

He didn't believe in black and white, because things were never that simple. 

Some days he would lay in the grass and close his eyes - he envisioned colours he'd never seen before, wondered about people he had never met before and tunes he'd never heard before. 

He was a creator, but sometimes lost the colours in his paintbox to create. 

One day while laying on the grass he opened his mouth wide and breathed deep, so deep that he swallowed a kaleidoscope of butterflies. 

He opened his eyes wide but it was too late, they had swum deep, deep into his belly, where they fluttered their fragile wings. 

He thought they were trying to escape, he coughed and sneezed and wrinkled his nose but nothing would work. 

He meditated on the flutter, that repeated action deep inside and soon realised the butterflies were not distressed, they were exploring every little inch of his body; every little finger and every little toe, his ears and his legs, they were recharging and re fuelling Mukul spreading colours throughout his entire body. 

Bedazzled by the sensations he closed his eyes, upon opening them he realised the colours were seeping outside of him, painting his skin and dreamily transforming his clothes.

His simple jacket was now a dream coat, a swirling blue sky with kaleidoscopic patterns tracing the lines and whims of the butterflies. 

He peered down and seen on his left lapel sat a starfish named Sally - Sally was his spirit guide; 5 perfect points with imperfect skin. 

The gold and glowing starfish reminded him that everything will forever exist as a series of dualities, a reminder of the stages of greyness within a world full of colour. 

Mukul felt open and aware with Sally by his side.

An alligator dressed in a geometric wonderland sat on his right lapel. He was his protector. His name was Alan – Mukul admired Alan for his bravery. He'd never seen someone so bold and so decorative. 

The shapes pressed against Alan's body encompassed a multitude of lines - responses and reactions to every occasion. Some round, some firm, some hard some soft - Alan represented strength, acceptance and adaptability. 

Mukul felt inspired and safe with Alan by his side. 

Alan encourage Mukul to be as colourful and as decorative as his grand brain would allow him to imagine. Alan told him to dream. 

In Mukul's dream coat he felt strong, brave, loving and powerful. Strangers would gravitate towards his colours - he realised that by being Mukul and being colourful he was spreading more joy and happiness in the world. 

This made him feel brave. 

Seated on the green, green grass where it all began Mukul reflected. The world he thought is a sea of starfish, both perfect and imperfect and a land of Alan's who enable their friends to be themselves. 

Mukul smiled. 

Mukul never felt more happy and alive then on those days he walked with Sally and Alan in his Technicolored dream coat with a belly full of butterflies. 

Balloons and Mountain-Less Mountains with Shaggy and Bandi

Dedicated to Those Who Discover Magic in a Far and Distant World. 

There was once a Shaggy Dog who loved the colour pink and loved long hair. She tried to have both and it was very tough - but she did it. She roamed, a little too often some may say, searching for newness and life stories. She loved to see how other animals lived, how the nature that surrounded them changed them. Shaggy Dog liked to change the setting of her story too, to see which one fit her best - was she an ocean girl most at home in the rivers and the open seas? Was she a desert flower finding the rugged beauty of life of the desert irresistible? Was she a forrest nymph dancing her way through the green, green, grasses of the lush treed heavens, feeling safe hiding behind mushrooms? Or was she a mountain fairy, with colourful wings that took her to white peaks and into deep swallowing valleys blossoming in the diversity of the sublime? She thought she'd found that which she liked best, but she still liked to test it, just to be sure. 

Shaggy Dog had spent many recent shaggy days in none of these tasty spaces. Instead her life was one guided and shielded by big tall buildings, in a big broad city, with no clean air to breathe and no clean water to drink. Shaggy Dog needed to go walkabout - another search, another life lesson, another chance to see different creatures in different lands and soak up all that difference that made both them and her special. 

She planned a holiday, alone. She liked to run alone sometimes, but she also liked friends. Someone to share her eyes with, someone to share her secrets with, someone to share her stories with, someone to share the mountains with - would this be her place she wondered. 

The day before she was ready to fly her new amigo Crash Bandicoot decided to crash the party. Crash Bandicoot loved crashing into things, but Shaggy Dog liked this about him. He was fresh, a new soul in this old world seeing everything for the first time, listening, learning and collecting every step of the way. Shaggy Dog and Crash Bandicoot came from different spaces, experiences and worlds, but this made sharing a new world together all the more fun. Crash Bandicoot was spontaneous but careful, kind but silly, a little forgetful but somehow still aware. A mixed boy, with mixed feelings and forked paths ready for anything. 

He was brown she was pink, Shaggy Dog pranced a little, Crash Bandicoot bounced a little. He had big circles around his bandicoot eyes, this made him see better. The streets were alight with rhythm as they walked together searching. For what? Who really knows, but neither cared. 

They were ready to leave the buildings world and the buildings people behind them. That boring greyness held something special somewhere, but right now it was a little bit cloudy - they needed a break to see that special something once again. Shaggy Dog thought it was strangely sad how you could feel so lost so quickly in a new but familiar space. 

So Shaggy and Bandi flew to the mountains, they didn't fly the regular way, but by a red heart shaped balloon. They were both open to love, looking for love and ready to share love, wearing the red heart on their sleeve. They floated high in the sky for what left like no time at all. Four big, curious eyes creeping over the edge of the basket bewildered by what they were seeing. Big, sharp, pointy triangles piercing the puffy clouds and shining above. They were seeing things animals couldn't see from land. It was magical. The clouds were firm but fluffy, the basket bounced, boing, boing, boing, over the clouds as they floated towards their destination. 

The big red heart shaped balloon was a little out of place in the new land. The new land was colourful but a different kind of colourful, not red heart shaped balloon kind of colourful. Lots of sheep lived here, their bodies were dressed in beautiful wools, all kind of shades and textures. Shaggy and Bandi brought something with them to show that they hadn't realised when jumping on board the balloon, they'd brought themselves. They stopped the sheep dead in their tracks necks twisting and turning. They realised instantly not only were they learning every step of the way, but they were also teaching. Shaggy realised in that moment this is a role we each will play forever in our lives, that of a student and that of a teacher. How perfect she thought. 

Shaggy and Bandi couldn't see the same landscape they had seen in the clouds back on the ground and this confused them a little, for they had thought they were running away to the mountains, only to find there were no mountains to be seen. No they couldn't see them but somehow they could feel them, in that space at that very moment they realised they had a new sense beyond the token five. It wasn't sight, scent, touch, smell or taste that was there, but a new kind of sense that words couldn't explain; it was the sense that knew the mountains were there, despite being seen or not, clouded in a certain kind of magic. 

They put down their backpacks and peddled out onto the street feeling fresh and new amongst all the new sights, smells, sounds and secrets. The sheep roamed quickly and quietly through the streets but they couldn't hide their curiosity, Shaggy and Bandi would turn and catch them as they disappeared down a lane giggling and smiling. There were some tough goats also out on the roads, they were the loud ones, stamping their feet and making themselves heard - but the tough goats are never the interesting kind of goats, for they wear the whole of themselves on the outside, leaving nothing to be learned and discovered, slowly and patiently. They are boring and transparent. Time should never be wasted on the tough goats in your life. 

Shaggy and Bandi valued kindness, they tried to be kind to all creatures big and small always, and this new mountain, mountainless space opened their hearts to a new kind of kindness. The tough goats thought they owned the town, but little did they know what little footprint they had left; for it was in the silence of the sheep that the space was transformed, in turn transforming those brave enough to enter. 

Shaggy felt different here, she felt like a milder and wiser version of herself. She watched the sheep move around her and the gentleness of their interactions. Shaggy liked to take care of all animals, she liked to make the creatures smile. But here in the mountainless mountains she imagined mini shaggy dogs and a senor snow dog building another kind of caring space together and this too made her smile. 

Days passed and Shaggy and Bandi continued recording their adventures together. A snapshot of their feelings, thoughts and observations in photographs, videos, drawings and words. By day three they were different absorbing the trails left behind by the sheep in the village. In this moment they decided to abandon their furs of the built up world and drown their bodies in wool, just like the sheep. It must be made clear that Shaggy and Bandi didn't want to be the sheep, they saw themselves as herders leading the pack in one way or another, and so, they kept their unique colours and textures of the heart shaped red ballooned world in their new wooly covering. Now they sat in a new place, in this new space they had journeyed to - they were neither outside nor inside, not up nor down in the mountainless mountained landscape. They'd formed a bridge between themselves and the new land absorbing, learning and adapting, whilst staying true blue to who they are. 

Snuggled in their wool on the banks of the lake Bandi grabbed Shaggy's tail and twisted her to the right. Shaggy stopped dead in her tracks just like the local sheep; here in the mountainless mountained landscape unveiled a big blue mountain, actually it was a series of big blue mountains, swirling and circling the land below, swallowing Shaggy and Bandi slowly, while secretly keeping them shielded and safe behind clouded magic. 

So it must be said that one mustn't ever be visually here to ever truly be there, for behind the foggy clouds often lies the answer. Shaggy and Bandi realised they were sweetly happy and full to the brim with the love they came armed with floating in the red balloon. Shaggy was no longer Shaggy, she was a transformed fairy. These wings she thought won't stop fluttering until clipped by the mountains for good.

To Ridiculous Love All Over The World.

Cow and Lion were always together, they had been the bestest of friends for 11 whole years, that's 132 months and 4015 days. They had done so much of their life learning together. They had chased rainbows, built sand castles, broken hearts, had their hearts broken, been lost together, loved together, danced together and dreamt together - everything they did they did together. It was the greatest kind of friendship, that RIDICULOUS kind of friendship that doesn't bring you down to earth, but rather spins you off to Jupiter to dream bigger, dance bigger, sing louder and chase more rainbows. 

One day Cow was presented with a rainbow, a rainbow with a different box of treasure at the end. Cow wanted to so desperately share this treasure with Lion, they were always together, it was their favourite place to be - side by side. But this treasure was different, it was a treasure that asked Cow to shake off her spots and venture into a new land, an unknown land, alone - without Lion. 

Cow didn't know what to do. She knew she was brave, she was tough, she would be ok - but she also knew the greatest kind of adventures were those adventures shared with Lion. Cow and Lion shared the same head and the same heart, she was the left leg, he was the right leg, she was the right arm, he was the left arm; yet, somehow, strangely enough, despite sharing equal limbs of the same body, Lion seen the world differently, Cow seen the world differently. Everyday they would teach and learn from one another, about one another and from and about the world around them. 

Cow didn't know what this new world would be like, without being able see it with and through Lion. Somewhere deep in her belly she felt a little scared, of what, she wasn't entirely sure, but Lion had been here for 11 whole years, 132 whole months and 4015 whole days, well maybe 4000 days, there were probably a few sick leaves in between. But the world was used to seeing them together, just as they were used to seeing the world together. 

Lion and Cow went to the mountains one day, the blue mountains, their favourite was blue, ultra marine blue, their favourite artist painted with that colour blue and they painted their bodies in that very same colour on Lions 18th birthday. They sat on the mountain and looked out at the world. This world was shifting, growing and changing in front of their very eyes, just as they were. 

Cow held Lions paw tightly and said 'we've spent 11 whole years with a few sick days in between, together in every physical sense of the word. But as we grow old and the world becomes smaller, the word together will be different, the word physical will be different, the word same will be different. We will realise as we grow older and bigger and bolder and stronger and wiser that we will forever be together, physical and the same, in every world in every space in every limb. I will help you walk with your right foot and your left foot and I'll help you stand tall with your left hand and your right hand, whenever you feel wobbley, never fear i'll always be there and I'll never let you fall.' 

Lion turned to Cow and took an orange crayon from his pocket, he held her left arm and wrote the word RIDICULOUS. Cow took a black crayon from her pouch and followed Lion's lead, she wrote the word RIDICULOUS on his arm. Lion turned to cow and said 'We'll carry this word with us wherever we go, to remind us to be strong and bold and colourful and RIDICULOUS forever, whenever and wherever. We'll also remember that our left arm and our right arm is never far away and that somewhere our RIDICULOUS other half is standing bold and bright, just knowing the other is there, somewhere out there, still so close, in the wild, wild world.'

For all the beautiful odd pairs out there.

Once upon a time a unicorn and a bear travelled the world. 

It was funny to see a bear and a unicorn together at times - one came from the clouds the other from the trees. One the colours of the rainbow the other the colours of the earth - On the outside they were different but on the inside they were the same, they were the two sides of the same coin. Heads and tails. 

They both loved words and pictures and dancing and cuddles, they also loved sharing and gobbling goodies - except ice cream they could never share ice cream. One liked caramel the other chocolate it was a bond never to be toyed with. They both hated - well nothing really, they were happy, they both dreamed and roamed and they wrote and they played together, apart, above and below, 

One day while laying in the grass staring up at the clouds Unicorn spotted a double rainbow - Unicorn asked Bear "What's at the end of your rainbow Bear?" Bear became a little philosophical he turned to rainbow and said, "Freedom." He then posed the same question to Unicorn to which she replied "Treasure." Treasure to Unicorn was more then the gold stuff - So much more, but Bear knew what she meant. 

Unicorn and Bear wandered and roamed with their eyes open and closed. They learnt to journey anywhere and everywhere together by simply closing their eyes and letting their imagination soar through the forests and clouds of homeland and out into the far and wide distant lands where they knew no one and nothing. They liked to feel far away and to feel and hear newness. 

Unicorn kept the kept the stories of her travels loosely in her rainbow tail, they were all sorts of colours and hues - A painting of each and every step she'd walked with and without Bear. Bear kept the jingling bells of adventure land singing in his belly, he was a great story teller and would dig deep down searching for the chime to re-capture his tales on the road. 

Grizzly Bear was a secretive little bear, he wasn't as grizzly as he tried to be - He wore his colours on the inside deep inside his belly full of butterflies, but he only showed these colours to the very few. Unicorn, all the colours of the horizon and the sea, was grounded by the Earth that Bear wore on the outside, on the inside. They were the heads and the tails of the same coin. 

Unicorn and Bear shared stories of their different worlds with one another and grew and learnt from one another. They lived out a far different world together - A world sitting in a rainbowed, tonal balance. A dusty pink hue that soon turned brown and housed all the colours in between. 

With Bear Unicorn could show all her colours, a dreamer in the clouds at times found life on land tricky, Bear taught her the tales of the trees, tall, full and wise. He taught her of the sacred roots that hold you up bold and bright, born in one spot but forever journeying outward. Unicorn showed Bear the land of the clouds, a coloured space of surreal magic and endless dreamtime.

One from the clouds dressed in rainbows, one from the trees dressed in the Earth - heads and tails of the same coin. This was Unicorn and Bear.

What does it mean to be here and there Unicorn asked herself one day, what if one is both here and there and down and up and left and right - always.

Bear and Unicorn had been both here and there and there and here and together and apart in multiple dimensions, times and spaces - but there were times when Bear wasn't there, in the there there that we know but secretly somewhere he was. 

Unicorn and Bear shared - always. They thought they were different and for some time kept reminding each other how different they were, but secretly they weren't that different. They loved to see and taste and touch and share, they shared words and colours, pictures and feelings. The both loved stories and their stories would become bolder and brighter every time they shared with each other. Bringing more magic to the adventure with every little word.

They had traveled - together - lots. They had traveled sitting silently side by side into some of the wildest worlds of dream time, they had traveled paw to paw, in real lands, new lands and old lands. They made each other tougher and braver. They balanced. Unicorn and Bear shared something special, Unicorn knew that from the very start. The grizzley bear that wasn't so grizzley taught her new things and she liked that, she learned something new each and every day, he made her heart bigger, fuller. The grizzley bear pretended to be grumpy, but he wasn't so grumpy - he was no average bear, he was a little cautious in the real world time; but in the dream land time he was cuddly and free. 

Unicorn and Bear were here and here in the real time, their journeys had brought them back together in the same space they had first met. But Unicorn was feeling a little stuck in that space, it was a space with lots of bricks and lots of cars and lots of a people. For a Unicorn living in the clouds she wanted to find those clouds once more, to refresh and come back. So she traveled to a world up above, a world she had dreamed of many times, a world she had dreamed of sharing with Bear. Unicorn wanted to feel the feeling of being here and there, but really here and here - for one must never really be here to ever truly be there. 

Unicorn journeyed to that land above the clouds, a far and distant story, in a far a distant time, a space that let her feel free. Not restricted by the big cars and the big buildings and the big people but free, free to be herself, free to feel. She landed in these clouds and her eyes gazed in wonder at the lands sitting before her - she'd never been to a land like this. She pranced with her rainbow tail and jiggling hooves down the streets of the new, old world, seeing the stamp of Bear everywhere. 

One day she danced in the maple leaves falling from the sky, it was autumn time and everything was transforming around her - orange, reds and yellows, singing songs with every corner she turned. She picked up a perfect 5 pointed leaf and pressed it in her book, Bear was there in that moment dancing on the street with every falling leaf. Unicorn roamed the streets feeling happy and free, she remembered how much she loved newness and how much she loved feeling different in a new, old space. 

Socks were her favourite thing, four little hooves and four feet to dress. Standing by the side of the road was a wooly sheep, he was covered head to toe in fuzzy goodness, Unicorn, never the most practical kind of Unicorn, had not quite dressed for the cloud occassion but she liked feeling cold, she liked the feeling of feeling. Bear loved socks too, he had two wooly feet and two wooly paws he needed to keep warm in the winter time. Unicorn picked up mountain socks and Santa socks, they both loved mountains and she loved Christmas, seeing Santa Claus and monsters made her far too smiley, she tied them in her rainbow tail and moved through the city. 

Unicorn wondered during these moments what the words here and there really meant. For Bear and Unicorn only days ago were both here and here but not truly ever there. In these misty moments Unicorn walked the silent streets solo, whenin the real time Bear was there and Unicorn was here, but she knew this wasn't true. With every tasty treat, with every spot of beauty andr every dancing leaf the Bear that was there was actually truly here. 

On Unicorns final day within the clouds she met a Buffalo she had once met in some other mountain in some other time. Bear was set to meet this Buffalo a few months back, he was a sweet and kind Buffalo, quiet and reserved but with good insides. The Buffalo asked the Unicorn where the Bear was, to which Unicorn replied "he is here," She picked up her favourite painting Buffalo had painted and pointed to the animals dancing under the Maples trees. "He is Here," Unicorn said smiling maybe you should write him a note. 

Unicorn took the note and the painting and squished it in her book, amongst the maples leaves beside the warm winter socks. She sat there with her collected memories and stories and smiled. The Bear and Unicorn shared a magic in the dream time and the real time, in the here space and the there space, amongst the weirdest of trees and the wildest of cities - they were safe, alone and together, here and there - they were there and there.

For Jimmy

Lion and Cow sat on a hill looking out at the world. 

They came here hand in hand, whenever they needed to think - They were always hand in hand, arms interlocked, never allowing the other to walk through that crazy jungle called life alone. 

"What's out there?" Cow said to Lion.

"They say there's lots of hills out there, way, way, out there. Some under water, some in the clouds, some even call them mountains not hills."

"How about that eh - Mount - Ains. It sounds wilddddd. Nowhere fit for a simple little Cow like me." 

But how wrong the simple little Cow was, for she was forever exploring greener pastures in dreamtime and real time, thinking about meeting other kinds of cows, the ones with the black and white spots, the ones that looked like midnight and the other ones with the curly perms on their heads - They always made Cow laugh, she'd only ever seen them in pictures. 

Cow was ready to explore, to travel to a new land and not always have the comforts of home in her lap. She liked home, it was warm and colourful and safe and home had Lion. But Cow knew it was maybe not her home, and the only way to find home was to walk the yellow brick road, maybe alone for a little while. 

Life with Lion was home - Two peas in one pod, dreamers sitting on a hill, sharing ideas and smiles. Hand in hand, heart to heart, right from the very start. "Home is wherever I'm with you,” Cow said to Lion. Cow never had to actually speak, for Lion to know what she was thinking. Cow liked that. Words complicated things. Life in pictures and smiles was their kind of world, it was better like that. 

Lion, a pack animal at heart was a wise old soul. Lion sat calmly on the edge of the hill, while Cow amassed her life in a series of comings and goings, moments and movements. Lion put his hand on Cows shoulder - "Our home Cow, is a land beyond these hills and these mountains, a painted ultramarine dreamscape of blue hues, deep waters and floating clouds. A land we will forever adventure, together." 

"Our home is that intergalactic space right before you fall asleep, when the blacks of darkness spin into a kaleidoscope of colours, pulsating with love and kindness." 

"Our home is a land we can, and always will come back to, because no matter which of the million of hills and mountains our souls drift to, when we close our eyes, we will be back at home, with each other - always." 

Cow ruffled Lion's mane and smiled, she turned behind and pulled a dandelion out of the ground - "Make a wish," Cow proclaimed to Lion and Lion wrapped his paw around Cows. Together with one big puff Cow and Lion made one big wish for the future, for each other, for the dreamers out there and for their endless friendship defying the boundaries of time and space, living up there, way up there on the hills of kaleidoscopic darkness and light.