On talia Ramkilawan’s “looking At the same moon”
An introduction
FIRST PUBLISHED IN BKHZ ON 2023-02-20 | ART
Talia Ramkilawan wants us to look at the moon.
Not because it represents the axis around which her family’s Tamil roots and rites turn. Not because – at the time of writing – the waning moon is in its ‘disseminating phase’. Not because it happens to be in Scorpio either.
Although she might invite us to do with these facts what we will, she is in a state of dissemination of her own: shedding our gaze in favour of something more vulnerable, more accepting, and less concerned with the urge to turn the everyday into discourse.
In this latest series, “Looking At The Same Moon”, the Cape Town-based artist builds on an ongoing body of work that serves as a personal exercise in reckoning and healing: needling through her relationships with self and others, with queerness, South African Indian-ness, and the chains of social and historical complexities that follow.
This time, though, she stops to look at herself in the moment – not as a precursor to a cooler/smarter/hotter self, or as physical evidence of a series of unfortunate events, or a data-point on an unsolicited census. She just looks.
From left: Love Me Harder and Wedding Day (Savupakyam, Dhaya and Mangathaye) (2023), both Talia Ramkilawan. Photography by: Tatenda Chidora
“My life has seen a lot of change over the past few months”
“…But no matter how I’m feeling, how hard things are, or how amazing things are, I am still me,” she explains. In response, Talia zones in on the small moments that ground her in “Looking at the Same Moon”: a messy bedside table, a moment of self-indulgence, an existential echo in a family photograph and more.
In “Pleasure Has Made Me More Resilient, Regardless” (below), for starters, a golden locket might imply the existence of hardship in the artist’s life, but the focus is – unequivocally – on pleasure as fuel.
We get the idea that it is less about serving up personal pain in order to triumph over it, but more about actively identifying less with hardship itself, and allowing desire to take the wheel. Talia affirms as much: these are meditations on remembering to “choose to feel good.”
“How am I propelling myself forward rather than stagnating in pain? Pleasure propels me forward. It keeps me going for much longer, whereas pain is just heavy and hard. It slows me down,” she explains – unwittingly negating the trope of ‘the tortured artist’ that the creative industry all-too readily exploits.
This negation of external expectation, paired with her commitment to sharing her feelings while she is sitting in them, is what makes this new series taut with unflinching honesty.
From above: Pleasure Has Made Me More Resilient, Regardless (2023) and State Of Mind (2023), both Talia Ramkilawan. Photography by BKhz
“State of Mind” (shown above) gives us a still-life of a bedside table littered with everyday necessities – some ‘ordinary’ (phone, plant earphones, tea) – others more ‘telling’ (dildo, DCT, pills, pepper spray).
For Talia, this was a moment of reckoning with the fact that there is a version of her ordinarily organised, tidy self that’s gotten untidy lately.
The only clue as to what might be behind this ‘state’ is a note written to herself in the piece that reads: “Dear me, I thought it’d be over by now but I’ve got a while to go. And that’s ok. xx”
Here the message is felt: it’s not about why. It’s about the fact that it, this moment, exists.
In sharp contrast, “Love Me Harder” (below) is an expression of the primal, all-consuming energy that follows what we imagine to be a fallout in love, or the sparks of something new.
While the title hints at a sense of defiance, the image of a bikini-clad woman crouched in a ring of fire with the face of Kali — the Hindu goddess of ultimate power, destruction and creation — suggests something more complicated.
For all her wildness, is there also a sense of entrapment, of fear? Or is it a thrill of anticipation, of sudden liberation?
Her direct gaze implicates us, but says no more.
Love Me Harder (2023), Talia Ramkilawan. Photography by BKhz
From the feral to the familial
“Wedding Day” (below) offers a seemingly divergent moment of reflection.
Drawing on an old photograph of her grandmother on her wedding day, flanked by her grandmother’s mother and mother-in-law, the three women gaze out with eyes half-open — a tad indifferent, but no less dutiful — as if to say:
‘If you must.’
Wedding Day (Savupakyam, Dhaya and Mangathaye) (2023), both Talia Ramkilawan. Photography by Tatenda Chidora
But wait –
Before we can get too lost in projecting ideas of brown families, gendered experiences, and happy-ever-afters onto “Wedding Day”, a woven nude selfie comes into view to remind us that this is Talia’s moment. We are mere guests.
“Thinking If You Also Dream of Me” (below) shows a topless Talia snapping a nude in a rainbow-flag encased phone, adorned with gold jewellery, long red nails, red bindi, and solo-disco appropriate headphones.
Draped by indoor plants above her, body poised as if to say ‘Felt cute, might immortalise later,’ this nude is a clear departure from a similar autobiographical piece made in 2019-20 titled, “You’re Hot AF For An Indian Girl.”
That’s because it is an intentional departure: from making work that responds to perceptions of her, to making work for herself and “not for anyone else.”
“I take nudes just for myself and they go nowhere. I think it’s really special to feel sexy for yourself,” she says.
In this case, we should all be so lucky – inspired even.
From above: Thinking If You Also Dream of Me ( (2023),
You’re Hot AF For An Indian Girl (2019), both Talia Ramkilawan
A mirror in time
In piecing a handful of these everyday intimacies together and leaning into the little pleasures that move her “forward in a lighter way”, Talia unwittingly builds a mirror in time, encourages herself to look at it with non-judgemental, self-affirming eyes, and invites us to do the same.
“Who are we in our most vulnerable and intimate moments – in our moments of pleasure, friendship, love and heartbreak?” she asks.
Just like the moon is still the moon in all its phases – from new and unseeable, to full and unavoidable – “Looking At The Same Moon” reminds us that we are worthy of being here: in frame, as is, in each phase and every cycle of our own becoming.
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”Looking At The Same Moon” was presented by BKhz gallery at the 2023 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, winning the fair’s Today/Tomorrow Prize.
Looking At The Same Moon, Installation view, Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2023), Talia Ramkilawan. Photography by Tatenda Chidora