Zarina Muhammad recommends:

“Two of my most favourite ‘companion kindred spirits’ in my home are in this image. Both have offered continued care in their embodiment of being an unassumingly gentle yet potently restorative space for me. This beautiful tikar/mat was a gift from my dear friend I-lann, whose practice and spirited energy is certainly a nourishing, energising and activating force that’s much needed in this world. This handwoven tikar which she created in collaboration with Kak Bunga from Pulau Bukit Tatagan is named Bengkuk – a name which points to the non-linear, sometimes curvilinear, sinuous and labyrinthine paths we might take. I remember the moment when we first laid out the tikar in my garden, under the night sky, sat within its space, traced our fingers on the patterns and laughed about how much we resonated with this way of travelling and being. The act of gift exchange, the cumulative biographies of objects and the embodied knowledge passed down through generations of women have been a recurring theme in my work. In these last few months, there has been an acceleration of unlearning and re-negotiating our relationship to time, to routines, to spatiality, presence and bodies in space and really asking the tough questions on what counts as meaningful ways of re-engaging with our practice while crossing thresholds we might be unfamiliar with. In these strange times we find ourselves in where many paths resists linearity, may we find access and routes to the forms of care, wisdom and safety we need.”
~ Zarina