This work explores the sadhana (spiritual practice) of Advaita Vedanta and its central concept of non-dualism, which argues that underneath the complexity of experience there is one single, infinite consciousness. Followers of this sadhana believe that all of reality is an illusion that distracts us from the truth that everything is God; Atman (the self) and Brahman (the highest universal principle, the original consciousness, or God) are synonyms. English writer Alan Watts uses the metaphor of a grand performance, a great play where you imagine God splits into a billion pieces and each piece puts a mask on and dances with each other. Life is this dance, and death is simply the removal of the mask, the removal of the pretense that we are not parts of the same whole. This concept of God-as-the-Self - the Universe, that which exists beneath rather than above, in everyone and everything, like cells or atoms - and its implications regarding death and grief resonate with me, and function as the inspiration for this piece.

For this project, I represented the idea of non-dualism by creating a series of interwoven cloths that are simultaneously distinct and interconnected. The underlying ethos of this also builds upon the sacred grid as articulated in Hindu and Buddhist traditions as well as by art historian Rosalind Krauss in her writings on Modernist art - that which is infinite and unchanging, deeply modern and yet timeless. These grids interlace, overlap, deflect, over and under, forming separate fabrics that create a single cloth. This set of interlocking grids was constructed entirely from my own handspun yarn, crafted from a combination of sheep’s wool, mohair, and alpaca fibres. In Advaita Vedanta, even in death, even when the mask and disguise are removed, we are fundamentally connected: living and dead, pieces of the same Universe merely playing hide and seek with itself. Absence and presence are expressed through gaps in the weave of each cloth, which disappear to create one solid cloth where they are joined at the centre. In the face of loss, the sacred grid remains, the Universe remains; nothing is lost, only transformed.

The name of this piece, tat tvam asi, is considered to represent the core idea of Advaita Vedanta. It is taken from dialogue in the Chandogya Upanishad, which goes as follows:

“In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent - one only, without a second. And it thought to itself: "let me become many. Let me propagate myself." It cannot be without a root, look to the existent as the root. The existent, my son, is the root of all these creatures - the existent is their resting place, the existent is their foundation. The finest essence here—that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the self (Atman). In that way, thus are you, Śvetaketu.”